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OFF     THE     MILL 


SOME    OCCASIONAL    PAPERS 


BY 


G.  F.  BEOWNE,  B.D,  D.C.L. 

HONOBARY  FELLOW  OP  ST  CATHARINE'S 

CANON   OF   ST  PAUL'S 

BISHOP  OP   STEPNEY 

MEMBER  OP   THE   ALPINE   CLUB 


»      J       »  o      »? 


MACMILLAN     AND     CO. 

1895 


•  •  •  •  • 

•  •  •  • » 
••  •  •< 


••  •  • 

•  • 
'  ••  • 


PEEFACE 


When  I  rejoined  the  Alpine  Club  last  winter,  after 
some  years  of  absence  from  that  most  pleasant  society, 
it  was  suggested  that  I  should  collect  and  publish  some 
of  my  papers  on  Alpine  subjects,  which  appeared  thirty 
years  ago  and  more  in  various  periodicals.  That  is  the 
excuse  for  the  present  little  book. 

Some  of  the  '  Cornhill '  articles  appeared  originally 
with  illustrations,  the  earliest,  or  almost  the  earliest, 
examples  of  Mr.  Du  Manner's  work.  It  was  at  first 
intended  to  reproduce  these,  which  I  have  always  re- 
garded as  the  best  part  of  the  papers.  But  on  con- 
sideration we  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  great 
change  which  has  taken  place  in  ladies'  dress  would 
cause  the  illustrations  to  seem  unreal.  The  present 
generation  of  Alpine  climbers,  if  the  book  falls  into  the 
hands  of  any  such,  will  find  in  the  text  quite  sufficient 
indications  of  the  earlier  state  of  things.  Their  way  to 
their  work  is  made  much  more  smooth  and  easy  than 
ours  was.  We  had  no  Einspanners,  and  we  carried  our 
own  things. 

ivil59986 


VI  PREFACE 

I  have  added  one  or  two  papers  on  other  subjects. 
The  '  Night  with  a  Salmon  '  records  an  experiment 
which  gave  rise  to  a  new  kind  of  sport,  namely,  salmon 
fishing  in  heavy  tidal  waters,  where  it  used  to  be  sup- 
posed that  rod-fishing  was  out  of  the  question.  I  shall 
be  glad  if  '  Collecting  Ancestors '  leads  some  readers  to 
enter  upon  the  investigations  which  I  have  found  so 
interesting.  The  *  Archaeological  Frauds  in  Palestine  ' 
conveys  warnings  of  general  interest,  I  think  ;  and  the 
papers  on  *Pontresina'  and  *The  Engadine'  will  not  be 
without  result  if  they  induce  anyone  to  take  more  than 
a  surface  interest  in  the  beautiful  district  to  which  so 
many  of  us  in  London  owe  such  strength  as  we  have. 

I  have  to  thank  the  editor  of  the  '  National  Review ' 
for  permission  to  use  a  recent  article. 

G.  F.  STEPNEY 

May,  1896. 


CONTENTS 


PAGK 

How  WE  SLEPT  AT  THE  CHALET  DES  CHEVRES    ...  1 

How  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OlDENHOEN 30 

How  WE  DID  MoNT  Blanc 60 

ICB-OAVES  OP  ANNECY 90 

A  Winter  Excursion  in  Switzerland  .        .        ...  117 

A  Night  with  a  Salmon 138 

The  ChIteau  in  the  Ardennes 161 

The  Engadine 168 

Arch^ological  Frauds  in  Palestine 195 

Collecting  Ancestors 227 

pontresina 253 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Thb  Old  Low-housb  (*  Collecting  Ancestobs')    FrontUpieee 
The  Bio  Fish  ('A  Night  with  ▲  Salmon')      tofcboe page  138 


HOW   WE  SLEPT 
AT  THE  CHALET  DES  CHiJVRES  ' 

We  were  a  party  of  three  pedestrians;  two  sisters, 
A.  and  M.,  and  one  brother,  G.  The  former  had  been 
developing  their  walking  powers  during  a  stay  of  two 
or  three  months  among  the  woods  of  the  Jura,  by  such 
rambles  as  ladies  might  take  unaccompanied,  and  the 
advent  of  the  male  person  of  the  party  had  long  been 
looked  forward  to,  as  opening  up  a  number  of  excur- 
sions too  extensive  or  too  ambitious  for  the  sisters 
alone.  In  fact,  they  were  not  alone ;  but  the  other 
members  of  the  family  party  lacked  the  physical  power 
requisite  for  their  long  climbs,  and  could  scarcely  feign 
a  sympathy  with  what  foreigners  know  as  the  English 
mania  for  wandering  and  mounting. 

And  yet  it  was  strange  that  the  clear  air  of  the 
upland  village  had  not  supplied  the  one,  and  the 
tempting  beauty  of  the  scene  the  other.  Below  was 
the  lake,  with  its  broad  frame  of  flat  and  richly  wooded 
country,  stretching  away  to  the  west  till  lost  amid  the 
glancing  skylights  of  Geneva.  The  whole  plain  lay  hot 
and  parched  under  the  terrible  August  sun,  suggesting 
'  Cornhill  Magazine^  September  1863. 

B 


2     HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHfiVRES 

feelings  of  self-gratulation  to  the  fortunate  spectator 
who  stood  at  a  cool  level  on  the  hills.  Mont  Blanc, 
meanwhile,  instinct  with  glittering  life,  flashed  his 
snowy  mantle  against  the  cloudless  sky  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  lake,  imparting  an  irresistible  impulse  in 
the  direction  of  a  mount  into  the  higher  glens,  where, 
even  in  the  Jura,  the  snow  and  ice  were  yet  unmelted 
in  the  pits,  and  a  cold  breeze  might  be  secured  in  the 
middle  of  the  hottest  day. 

The  excursion  to  which  this  paper  owes  its  origin 
came  to  pass  in  this  way.  The  three  young  people 
already  mentioned  were  sitting  in  the  covered  balcony 
of  the  chalet  where  their  family  had  spent  the  summer ; 
no  one  thought  of  raising  an  eye  to  look  at  the  evening 
glories  of  the  Savoy  Alps,  for  the  magnificent  view  had 
become  an  every-day  matter.  The  lake  close  below,  for 
so  it  seemed  to  be,  though  twelve  hundred  feet  of  eleva- 
tion and  some  eight  or  nine  miles  of  road  cut  them  off 
from  it,  displayed  in  vain  its  sunset  dress ;  they  were 
biases  for  that  particular  view  from  that  particular  spot ; 
the  balcony  was  now  a  place  for  reading  and  work, 
though  once  it  had  been  devoted  entirely  to  gazing. 

A.  and  M.  were  busy  with  their  work,  giving  fitful 
accounts  of  their  mountain  walks  to  G.,  who  was 
by  turns  an  inattentive  and  attentive  hearer  as  the 
volume  of  Tauchnitz  proved  interesting  or  the  reverse. 
One  of  these  excursions,  on  which  they  appeared  to 
dwell  with  peculiar  delight,  had  taken  them  to  the  top 
of  a  high  cone  of  rock,  comparatively  bare  of  trees, 


HOW  WE  SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES  CHllVRES     3 

which  rose  abruptly  about  half  an  hour's  climb  above 
the  wooded  glades  forming  the  summit  of  the  Jura. 
They  said  much  of  the  beauty  of  the  view,  of  the  clear- 
ness of  the  air,  of  the  difficulties  of  the  road,  and  of  the 
one  blind  path  which  they  had  discovered  by  following 
the  complicated  directions  of  a  chalet  man,  given  in 
unintelligible  patois.  At  the  very  top  of  this  rugged 
cone  were  four  walls  and  a  part  of  a  roof,  being  the 
remains  of  what  had  once  been  the  Chalet  des  Chevres 
— the  goats'  chalet. 

At  this  point  G.  became  so  far  interested  as  to  raise 
his  head  and  ask  what  sort  of  shelter  the  old  chalet 
would  afford  in  case  of  a  storm. 

'  Very  good,'  they  asserted,  '  if  the  window-holes 
were  a  little  filled  up,  and  anything  in  the  shape  of  a 
door  forthcoming.' 

'  Any  signs  of  a  fireplace  ? '  G.  asked. 

'  Yes  ! '  cried  A.,  quite  breathlessly,  and  with  dis- 
tended eyes.  '  Such  a  charming  hole  in  the  roof !  The 
smoke  couldn't  help  going  through  ! ' 

'  What  do  you  think,'  G.  continued,  almost  brought 
to  silence  by  the  eager  interest  with  which  A.  hung 
upon  his  words,  '  what  do  you  think  of  spending  a 
night  up  there,  to  see  the  sun  rise  ?  ' 

'  Mother  !  mother  ! '  they  ran  screaming  off,  '  he's 
proposed  it  himself !  We  didn't  say  a  word  about  it ! ' 
and  much  clapping  of  hands  ensued,  not  unaccom- 
panied by  groans,  or  rather  murmurs  of  protest,  from 
the  elderly  lady  whose  slumbers  were  thus  broken  in 

B  2 


4     HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHllVRES 

upon.  It  turned  out  that  this  idea  of  camping  in  the 
chalet  for  the  sunrise  had  been  for  some  time  in  A.  and 
M.'s  mind,  as  possibly  to  be  carried  out  on  G.'s  arrival ; 
but  the  prudent  heads  of  the  family  had  determined 
that  it  was  impracticable.  More  than  that,  they  had 
been  confident  that  G.  would  be  the  first  to  think  so, 
unless  it  were  very  artfully  put  before  him.  The 
spontaneous  insanity  which  he  had  now  displayed  was 
a  stroke  for  which  they  were  not  prepared,  and  all 
direct  opposition  was  at  once  broken  down.  It  was 
agreed,  however,  on  all  hands,  that  at  least  two  of  the 
three  aspiring  excursionists  should  pay  a  previous  visit 
to  the  chalet,  to  see  what  its  capabilities  really  were, 
before  they  committed  themselves  to  the  labour  of 
carrying  up  the  things  necessary  for  spending  a  night 
within  its  walls. 

Accordingly,  M.  and  G.  went  one  day  to  survey  the 
place,  and  after  some  hours  of  agreeable  climbing 
reached  the  chalet,  which  they  found  (a  foregone  con- 
clusion, it  need  not  be  said)  perfectly  fit  for  their 
purpose.  The  walls  were  so  thick  that  large  stones 
could  be  piled  up  in  the  holes  which  had  served  for 
windows,  so  as  to  keep  out  some  of  the  night  air  and 
all  less  pleasant  visitors  ;  and  there  were  a  good  number 
of  planks  lying  about  which  would  serve  to  raise  the 
sleepers  from  the  damp  ground.  Above  all,  they  dis- 
covered in  a  corner  a  very  respectable  piece  of  door. 
There  were  three  compartments  inside  the  chalet :  the 
middle,  where  the  principal  hole  in  the  roof  was,  for 


HOW   WE   SLEPT  AT   THE   CHALET  DES   CH:&VRES     5 

kitchen  and  eating  purposes ;  the  two  ends  for  bedrooms, 
one  horribly  dark  and  still,  the  other  light  and  very- 
draughty.  So  that  on  the  whole  they  were  justified  in 
taking  a  flourishing  account  of  the  accommodations  of 
the  place  to  their  friends  below,  and  also  a  goodly  bas- 
ket of  the  spoils  of  the  way  in  the  shape  of  blaeberries 
and  strawberries,  which  went  far  to  remove  the  slight 
opposition  still  kept  up  on  conservative  principles. 

The  preparations  were  not  very  great.  Bedding  was 
for  long  a  vexed  question,  for  every  native  told  shudder- 
ing tales  of  the  cold  of  a  night  at  the  top  of  the  hills, 
and  warned  the  mad  English  that  wraps  would  be  more 
necessary  than  food  itself.  Fortunately  the  protesting 
parents  of  the  party  were  guiltless  of  French,  and  so  the 
full  force  of  these  representations  never  reached  them  ; 
for  all  the  interpreting  passed  through  the  hands  of  the 
pedestrians,  and  the  energetic  little  landlady's  wailings 
over  their  probable  fate  were  perhaps  not  rendered  into 
English  of  equal  vigour  and  spirit.  So  they  settled  the 
question  by  taking  no  rugs — ^in  fact  the  heat  on  the 
lower  part  of  the  hills  promised  to  be  so  great  (and  it 
fulfilled  its  promise)  that  a  rug  would  soon  have  had  to 
qualify  for  a  shroud,  had  they  attempted  to  carry  one. 
Those  miserable  duvets  gave  the  greatest  trouble,  for 
there  was  no  gainsaying  the  paternal  arguments  which 
asserted  their  lightness  and  powers  of  compaction,  and 
the  only  way  out  of  the  difficulty  was  by  an  unqualified 
assertion  that  Madame  Dorier  would  not  like  her  clean 
duvets  to  be  put  to  such  a  disreputable  use.     Unfor- 


6     HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHILET  DES   CHfiVEES 

tunately,  Madame  was  so  extremely  kind  and  obliging 
that  the  stay-at-home  faction  were  confident  that  she 
would  accede  to  the  request  for  the  duvets,  if  the  matter 
were  properly  put  before  her ;  after  which  nothing  was 
left  but  for  A.  to  say  that  she  hadn't  the  face  to  ask  it, 
and  positively  cotiZc?  not  do  it;  M.  and  G.  shrugging  sym- 
pathetic shoulders  and  declining  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  so  unreasonable  a  request. 

The  bedding  was  a  great  weight  off  their  minds  and 
backs,  and  at  length  their  ideas  of  what  would  be 
necessary  were  brought  within  the  requisite  bounds.  A. 
and  M.  so  far  bowed  to  maternal  authority  as  to  strap 
each  a  shawl  to  her  waist,  the  two  ends  hanging  down, 
and  that  was  the  sole  extra  wrapping  they  took  with 
them.  Each  had  also  a  flat  basket  of  food,  similarly 
fastened,  and  an  empty  quart  bottle.  All  three  carried 
toilette  apparatus,  and  a  small  basin  and  saucer,  with 
spoon  and  knife.  M.,  who  was  a  sturdy  little  person, 
undertook  the  teapot,  a  strange  Swiss  copper  vessel  ex- 
actly like  a  brown  owl  in  shape  and  colour,  which  was 
wont  to  be  perched  on  a  stone  by  the  kitchen  fire  when- 
ever it  was  expected  that  the  English  would  require 
warm  water.  Like  the  shawls  and  baskets,  M.  slung 
this  to  her  waist ;  but  lest  it  should  bump  too  much  it 
was  put  under  the  skirt  of  her  dress,  by  which  means  its 
vagaries  were  sufficiently  restrained.  G.  carried  on  his 
back,  knapsack-wise,  a  coat  and  waistcoat  for  night  use, 
for  it  was  much  too  hot  for  anything  more  than  a  shirt 
in   walking,   and,   wrapped   in   these,   a   vast   loaf  of 


HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES  CHJiVEES     7 

spherical  form,  cut  into  halves  to  economise  packing- 
room.  Also  a  small  bag  knapsack,  wherein  was  a  bottle 
of  Langlade  wine,  an  empty  quart  bottle  for  milk,  and 
an  empty  tumbler  for  butter,  these  to  be  procured  at  the 
last  chalet,  an  hour  and  a  half  from  the  goats'  ruin.  At 
the  last  moment  before  starting,  a  Vicuna  shawl,  soft 
and  light  and  warm,  was  brought  by  the  maternal  hands, 
and  it  was  declared  authoritatively  that  if  G.  did  not 
wrap  up  his  coat  and  the  hemispheres  of  bread  in  this 
the  party  simply  should  not  go.  This  being  a  matter 
which  no  interpreting  ingenuity  could  stave  off,  G.  was 
victimised,  and  the  shawl  had  the  advantage  of  seeing 
the  sunrise. 

At  last  they  were  off,  amid  the  ill-omened  prophecies 
of  the  anxious  landlady,  which  they  did  not  think  it 
necessary  to  explain  to  their  equally  anxious  parents. 
Mounting  began  literally  the  moment  they  left  the  door, 
for  the  house  was  built  on  so  steep  a  slope  that  the 
ground-floor  at  the  back,  whence  they  issued,  was 
a  high  balcony-floor  in  front.  After  a  hard  and  hot 
ascent  through  beech  woods  for  half  an  hour,  they 
stopped  for  a  minute  or  two,  nominally  to  admire  the 
view,  really  to  rest  a  little.  The  view,  however,  was 
well  worth  the  few  minutes  devoted  to  it,  for  they  had 
now  reached  the  first  plain,  a  green  lawn  from  which  the 
hay  had  been  four  days  removed,  where  the  chalet  La 
Violette  stood.  The  fresh  green  grass,  and  the  beautiful 
bell-shaped  beeches  which  rose  from  it  in  picturesque 
groups  or  still  more  picturesque  solitariness,  were   in 


8     HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHfeVEES 

themselves  sufficiently  fair ;  but  as  the  travellers  stood 
well  back  on  the  plain,  and  turning  southward  saw  the 
pure  white  of  the  upper  half  of  Mont  Blanc,  cut  short 
off  by  the  fairy  lawn  from  which  they  looked,  the  effect 
was  simply  magical.  Fifty-five  miles  of  land  and  water 
lay  between  the  meadows  of  La  Violette  and  the  snows 
of  the  White  Mountain,  but  all  was  hid  from  view  by 
the  green  crest  over  which  the  path  had  lain,  and  the 
ice  and  snows  seemed  to  be  as  near  and  refreshing  to 
them  as  the  lovely  young  grass  of  the  vast  lawn. 

Keeping  their  object  sternly  in  view,  they  soon  left 
La  Violette  behind,  and  an  easy  half-hour  brought 
them  to  the  '  convent  fountain.'  Every  one  knows  so 
well  the  provident  wisdom  displayed  by  the  monks  in 
their  choice  of  sites,  that  it  is  needless  to  tell  how  the 
convent  fountain  was  famed  through  all  the  southern 
slope  of  the  Jura.  The  water  poured  through  a  wooden 
pipe  into  a  huge  trunk  trough,  lying  in  a  soft  green 
plot  of  grass  surrounded  by  beech-trees,  among  which 
the  mounds  that  marked  the  convent  walls  might  be 
traced  with  great  accuracy ;  so  much  so  that  the  dormi- 
tories round  the  centre  building  might  still  be  counted, 
and  the  solitary  cell  be  seen  a  stone's  cast  from  the 
mass  of  the  convent.  A.  and  M.  had  in  the  course  of 
two  or  three  months  become  so  deeply  enamoured  of 
the  beauties  of  this  fountain,  that  they  had  set  off,  a 
week  or  two  before  the  present  visit,  with  a  large  stock 
of  pots  and  pans,  and  had  cleaned  out  the  trough,  even 
scrubbing  it  well  into   the  corners  with  nail-brushes. 


HOW   WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHEVRES     9 

This  sufficiently  explained  the  angry  exclamations 
which  broke  the  stillness  of  the  monks'  old  home,  when 
they  found  sundry  pieces  of  plebeian  bread  floating  in 
the  water.  The  poor  raspberry  gatherers,  who  had 
steeped  their  dry  dinner  in  the  fountain,  came  in  for  a 
large  amount  of  vilification ;  and  an  unfortunate  little 
bird,  whose  feather  polluted  their  pet  trough,  was 
apostrophised  in  all  the  strong  words  of  a  lady's 
vocabulary. 

Neither  bread  nor  feathers,  however,  prevented 
them  from  applying  to  the  pure  source.  A.  now  dis- 
played her  chief  weakness,  which  took  the  form  of  a 
passion  for  cold  water  on  a  hot  walk.  Water  by  itself 
was  a  sufficient  delight,  but  when  she  had  her  little  red 
glass  with  her,  there  really  were  no  bounds  to  her  pota- 
tions. That  little  glass  was  her  idol,  chiefly,  as  was 
believed,  because  it  had  once  been  sat  upon  and  had 
come  out  uncracked  from  the  ordeal.  She  was  always 
told  that  she  would  kill  herself,  and  on  particularly 
hot  walks  G.  had  been  known  to  wax  very  cross  as  the 
tumblerfuls  mounted  up  to  the  high  numbers.  But  on 
the  present  occasion  she  was  obliged  to  be  more 
moderate,  being  called  upon  to  tell  how  '  the  seigneurs ' 
were  allowed  three  weeks  to  change  their  religion,  and 
how  they  followed  the  example  of  the  North  British 
monks  at  Ripon,  and  chose  rather  to  desert  the  convent, 
carrying  their  silver  with  them,  before  the  three  weeks 
expired.  She  had  learned  the  tale  from  a  deboshed- 
looking  old  man,  whose  wife  complained  that  no  work 


10     HOW  WE    SLEPT  AT  THE    CHALET  DES   CHfiVEES 

could  be  got  out  of  him  now  that  the  English  ladies  let 
him  walk  about  with  them  and  tell  them  lies. 

They  left  the  convent  fountain  not  without  regret, 
for  the  next  good  water  was  miles  away,  and  the  after- 
noon was  so  terribly  hot  that  all  were  more  or  less 
affected  by  a  partial  mania,  similar  to  A.'s  chronic  com- 
plaint. Once  off,  however,  they  thought  no  more  about 
the  water,  for  the  sudden  changes  from  wood  to  open, 
and  from  open  to  wood,  kept  them  in  a  constant  state 
of  delight,  while  every  step  crushed  a  hundred  little 
flowers,  which  formed  the  design  of  the  soft  carpet  on 
which  they  trod ;  so  that  on  the  whole  the  hours  seemed 
to  have  passed  very  quickly  when  they  found  them- 
selves at  the  Chalet  de  Grantene,  patois  for  Grand 
Ennaz.  This  was  the  last  piece  of  humanity  on  the 
way,  and  here  they  were  to  complete  their  stores  by 
filling  the  empty  bottles  and  the  tumbler. 

Fortunately  they  reached  the  chalet  a  few  minutes 
before  the  afternoon  milking  began,  so  they  were  in 
time  to  accept  the  offer  of  a  bowl  of  new  milk  from  the 
hospitable  head  of  the  establishment,  a  fine  Bernois 
with  grey  head  and  eagle  nose,  and  meanwhile  seated 
themselves  in  the  cool  butter-room  to  drink  Hit  lait. 
For  this  last  purpose  the  visit  was  not  well  timed. 
The  full  benefits  of  the  refreshing  qualities  of  Hit  lait 
are  only  to  be  enjoyed  when  it  is  on  the  balance  be- 
tween hot  and  cool;  and  now  it  was  cold,  and  therefore 
heavy. 

,  The  men  had  already  armed  themselves  for  milking; 


HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHfiVEES     11 

a  somewhat  curious  process,  presenting  a  most  remark- 
able appearance  when  accomplished.  The  interior 
accommodations  of  a  chalet  are  becoming  so  familiar, 
that  it  is  almost  unnecessary  to  describe  the  '  chair  of 
the  mountains,'  as  the  chalet  men  pleasantly  style  their 
itinerant  seats.  Each  milker  possesses  a  stool,  which, 
when  not  in  use,  may  be  taken  for  a  small  round  shield, 
with  a  boss  at  the  centre  a  foot  long,  shod  with  pointed 
iron.  This  stool  is  strapped  on  bodily  in  a  suitable 
position,  and  when  a  man  gets  up,  his  stool  of  course 
gets  up  with  him,  so  that  when  he  comes  out  with  his 
pail  of  milk  to  the  huge  copper  cauldron  ready  to  receive 
its  contents,  he  appears  with  a  stiff  stump  of  a  tail 
behind.  One  would  have  thought  that  three  legs  would 
have  been  easier  to  sit  upon  than  one,  but  undoubtedly 
the  prevailing  arrangement  is  much  more  picturesque 
and  ludicrous.  To  an  unpractised  Englishman  the 
manoeuvring  of  this  caudal  appendage  is  a  great  difficulty, 
for  the  strap  round  the  hips  is  tight  and  cramping,  and 
renders  locomotion  undesirable ;  while  to  sit  down  in 
any  soft  place  is  attended  by  awkward  consequences,  as 
the  leg  inserts  itself  into  the  ground  according  to  the 
weight  of  the  sitter,  and  has  him  at  a  considerable  dis- 
advantage when  he  attempts  to  get  up. 

The  advent  of  '  the  English  ladies,'  about  milking- 
time,  at  any  of  the  chalets  in  the  neighbourhood,  always 
elicited  a  number  of  those  inimitable  milking  songs  from 
the  men,  and  with  these  they  now  amused  themselves 
until  the  firstfruits  of  the  first  cow  were  brought  by  the 


12     HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT   THE   CHALET  DES  CHftVRES 

Bernois  himself  with  much  politeness,  and  with  a  grace 
which  few  Englishmen  would  have  achieved  with  a  foot 
of  wood  and  iron  for  a  tail.  The  milk  was  strained  for 
them  into  an  inexpressibly  white  tub,  round  the  edges 
of  which  hung  three  wooden  spoons  of  large  capacity, 
carved  by  the  chalet  men.  The  sieve  was  a  remarkable 
apparatus,  consisting  of  a  wooden  funnel  with  an  aper- 
ture large  enough  to  admit  a  female  fist,  if  such  a  thing 
exists ;  into  this  aperture  a  bunch  of  spruce  twigs  was 
squeezed,  something  like  what  you  extract  from  the  crop 
of  a  capercailzie,  and  through  these  twigs  the  milk  was 
poured. 

Having  consumed  the  best  part  of  a  small  cow,  the 
pedestrians  proceeded  to  fill  the  quart  bottle  from 
another  tub,  and  gave  the  tumbler  to  the  Bernois  to  be 
filled  with  butter.  He  was  anxious  that  they  should 
take  a  little  brick  of  serre  (stiff  cheese  curd),  but  they 
could  not  carry  up  sufficient  milk  to  make  it  palatable, 
and  so  declined  the  offer  of  the  tempting-looking  mass. 
A.  and  M.  quite  fell  in  love  with  the  old  man,  because 
he  was  the  first  person  who  had  not  attempted  to  dissuade 
them  from  making  their  beds  in  the  goats'  chalet,  and, 
above  all,  because  his  bright  eyes  became  brighter,  and 
his  tail  wagged  sentimentally,  when  he  divined  their 
purpose  in  the  expedition,  and  spoke  of  a  sunrise  as  if 
he  felt  its  charms,  and  could  sympathise  with  any  efibrt 
which  had  so  worthy  an  object.  He  made  them  promise 
to  call  in  the  morning  and  tell  him  how  they  had 
sped  ;  and  then,  seeing  they  were  ready  to  go,  he  made 


HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHfeVRES     13 

off  to  his  COWS  again,  waggling  his  stumpy  tail  behind 
him. 

A  hundred  yards  or  two  brought  the  party  to  the  last 
water.  Here  they  filled  the  two  remaining  bottles,  and 
then  steadily  set  their  faces  towards  the  grey  cone  which 
now  became  visible,  rising  up  from  the  undulating  plains 
and  woods  which  crown  that  ridge  of  the  Jura.  The 
road  to  the  foot  of  the  cone  was  beset  at  each  step  by 
prolific  tufts  of  blaeberries  and  strawberries,  but  as  the 
sun  was  drawing  down  fast  towards  the  horizon,  and  they 
contemplated  a  sunset  as  well  as  a  sunrise  from  the 
solitary  elevation,  they  had  not  much  time  to  spare ; 
moreover,  G.'s  digestion  was  not  in  a  state  to  allow  him 
to  eat  crude  fruits,  so  he  stalked  on  inexorably  at  a  pace 
which  it  required  all  the  sturdiness  of  M.'s  short  legs, 
and  all  the  length  of  A.'s  long  ones,  to  keep  up  with. 

So  far  they  had  not  come  across  any  real  mountain 
climbing,  although  it  had  been  a  severe  ascent  the  whole 
way ;  but  now  they  reached  the  base  of  the  cone,  and 
began  to  wind  up  its  almost  perpendicular  sides.  It 
certainly  reflected  great  credit  on  A.  and  M.  that  they 
had  discovered  the  path,  guided  by  an  excelsior  instinct 
which  they  always  displayed  when  near  a  mountain. 
To  uninitiated  eyes,  there  was  no  reason  for  going  to  the 
right  rather  than  to  the  left  of  sundry  groups  of  trees, 
no  apparent  object  to  be  gained  by  going  below  instead 
of  above  certain  fragments  of  mountain.  But  when  all 
the  obstacles  which  clustered  round  the  foot  of  the  cone 
had  been  surmounted,  and  the  three  stood  on  the  clear 


14     HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CH^VEES 

face  of  the  rock,  it  was  seen  that  there  had  been  a  method 
in  their  windings  which  no  path  had  pointed  out,  and 
the  male  person  of  the  party  expressed  (and  possibly  his 
companions  felt)  great  admiration  for  the  feminine  in- 
genuity which  had  threaded  the  difficulties  without  a 
guide. 

M.  had  a  weakness  for  performing  all  her  excursions 
in  a  roomy  crinoline,  and  it  had  been  an  amusement  to 
A.  and  G.  the  whole  time  to  watch  the  peculiar  forms  into 
which  the  inflated  petticoats  were  driven  by  the  superin- 
cumbent weight  of  the  copper  teapot,  slung,  as  has  been 
said,  under  the  skirt  of  her  dress.  These  peculiarities 
were  considerably  increased  now  that  she  came  to  lay 
herself  well  down  to  the  steep  climb,  and  one  conse- 
quence was  that  she  persisted  in  going  last.  This 
worked  badly  in  one  or  two  ways ;  first,  because  she 
knew  most  about  the  road,  and  her  directions  from  the 
rear  often  came  too  late ;  and,  secondly,  because  they 
had  now  come  to  the  region  of  griffes  de  chat,  and  as  M. 
was  particularly  attached  to  that  fruit,  and  there  was  no 
one  behind  to  drive  her,  A.  and  G.  could  not  get  her 
on.  Eventually  they  missed  the  sunset,  and  the  others 
silently  attributed  it  to  the  unlucky  combination  of  tea- 
pot and  petticoats  and  precipice  which  had  let  M.  loose 
upon  her  pet  fruit.  Griffes  de  chat  are  not  very  tempting 
things  either ;  resembling  an  irregular  blackberry  in 
shape  and  size,  and  a  half-ripe  barberry  in  colour,  and 
it  may  be  added,  in  sourness. 

At  last  they  reached  the  top,  and  pressed  eagerly 


HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHfeVRES     15 

into  the  little  hut  to  see  how  it  looked  now  that  they 
were  really  dependent  on  it  for  a  night's  shelter. 
There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  their  hearts  rather 
sank,  for  it  looked  incredibly  gloomy  and  the  air  was 
one  mass  of  midges.  The  left-hand  compartment,  which 
had  been  dignified  with  the  name  of  the  double-bedded 
room,  was  so  perfectly  dark  that  for  anything  they 
could  see  there  might  be  bears  or  wolves  or  wild  boars 
hiding  in  the  corners,  for  the  neighbourhood  could  supply 
all  those  horrors  on  occasion.  Clearly  nothing  was 
to  be  done  till  they  got  a  good  fire  ;  so  they  hurriedly 
rid  themselves  of  their  encumbrances,  and  after  a  mad 
panic  for  a  second  or  two  when  no  one  knew  where  the 
matches  had  been  put,  and  another  more  subdued  fright 
when  the  smoke  refused  to  go  out  by  the  hole  in  the 
roof,  they  succeeded  in  establishing  an  excellent  blaze, 
which  soon  cleared  the  midges  away  and  made  the 
place  look  quite  comfortable.  A  little  arrangement  of 
small  boulders  formed  a  capital  fireplace,  and  benches 
were  easily  made  round  the  fire  with  the  planks  and 
logs  which  were  strewn  about  the  chalet. 

A.,  meanwhile,  had  set  off  to  make  what  use  she 
might  of  the  fast-failing  twilight  to  gather  strawberries 
for  tea,  and  G.  now  started  for  a  more  pretentious  load 
of  firewood,  such  as  should  suffice  to  keep  the  fire 
going  till  the  morning.  M.  was  left  to  make  the  tea, 
and  to  set  out  the  various  kinds  of  food  which  the 
whims  of  three  people  had  brought  together.  The  tea- 
making  process  was  a  simple  one,  as   there  were   no 


16     HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CH^VKES 

complications  of  kettle  and  um  and  teapot ;  the  copper 
owl,  set  on  a  stone  in  the  fire,  was  filled  with  water, 
and  when  this  boiled  the  tea  was  thrown  in  and  sent  to 
the  bottom  with  a  spoon. 

Before  very  long,  A.  had  exhausted  the  twilight 
and  G.  had  collected  a  suflSciency  of  wood,  and  the  two 
returned  slowly,  not  to  say  wearily,  to  the  camp.  By 
this  time  all  appearance  of  day  and  of  Mont  Blanc  had 
vanished,  and  the  moon  made  vast  pillars  of  moonshine 
on  the  surface  of  the  lake,  now  between  three  and  four 
thousand  feet  below,  itself  being  twelve  hundred  above 
the  sea.  The  scene  which  presented  itself  when  they 
reached  the  door  of  the  chalet  was  a  perfect  picture. 
M.  had  large  talents  for  neatness  and  orderliness,  and 
her  utmost  skill  had  been  most  successfully  exerted  on 
this  occasion.  On  a  large  raised  plank  were  arranged 
the  different  foods,  according  to  their  proprietorship ; 
ham  for  one,  hard  eggs  for  another,  corned  beef  for  a 
third,  with  a  hemisphere  of  bread  and  an  abundance  of 
sweet  Swiss  cake  for  the  party  in  general.  One  of  the 
three  had  so  far  defied  public  opinion  as  to  bring  a 
piece  of  Gruyere  with  abominably  orthodox  smell ; 
before  the  evening  was  over,  however,  public  opinion 
waxed  hungry,  and  shared  the  cheese  with  the  owner. 
On  such  excursions  nothing  is  equal  to  a  well-made 
wurst,  if  only  one  has  a  knife  with  a  very  sharp  blade  to 
cut  it  neatly  ;  the  Jura,  however,  is  not  the  habitat  of 
ivurstj  so  the  party  had  none.  Opposite  this  stall  was 
the  fire,  blazing  away  as  only  gipsy  fires  can  blaze,  the 


HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT   THE   CHALET   DES   CH:^VRES     17 

blackened  little  owl  simmering  contentedly  on  its  warm 
perch,  while  on  two  suitable  projections  from  the  walls 
composition  candles  burned  cheerfully  and  bright. 
The  whole  was  a  mass  of  brilliant  illumination,  and  in 
the  midst  M.  moved  about  with  neatly  festooned  dress 
and  short  hair.  '  Short '  is  not  usually  an  epithet  of 
praise  when  applied  to  a  lady's  hair ;  but  in  this  case 
it  is  so,  for  M.,  having  once  had  her  hair  cut  short  in  a 
dangerous  illness,  looked  so  well  in  it  that  she  yielded 
to  the  solicitations  of  her  friends,  and  ever  after  kept  it 
almost  as  short  as  a  boy's.  This  nearly  got  her  party 
into  a  scrape  at  the  French  fort  of  Les  Rousses,  which  is 
in  such  unpleasant  proximity  to  that  Dappes  valley  lately 
ceded  to  France.  The  day  of  their  visit  to  the  fortress 
being  windy,  G.  was  seen  by  some  of  the  soldiers  to 
assume  a  pair  of  blue  spectacles  when  he  came  to  the 
dusty  glacis,  and  evidently  this  excited  their  sus- 
picions; imagine,  then,  how  they  bristled  with  the 
importance  of  detecting  spies,  when  a  sudden  gust 
lifted  off  M.'s  hat  and  concealing  veil,  and  displayed  a 
neat  man's  head  of  hair ! 

Picture  or  not,  A.  and  G.  were  too  tired  and  too 
hungry  to  stand  long  at  the  door,  or  hole  of  entrance, 
to  look  at  it.  Accordingly  they  speedily  pushed  in 
towards  their  provisions,  and  as  soon  as  the  milk-bottle 
and  the  butter  had  been  brought  from  the  window- 
hole  in  which  they  had  been  set  to  cool,  proceeded  to 
attack  the  food.  It  was  found  at  once,  however,  that 
the   fire  was   too  hot,  although   the   tea   stall  was   as 

c 


18     HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET   DES   CHJiVHES 

far  from  it  as  the  limits  of  the  hut  would  allow.  So  a 
screen  became  necessary,  and  G.  felt  a  peculiar  pleasure 
in  running  a  couple  of  alpenstocks  through  the  maternal 
Vicuna  shawl  which  he  had  been  forced  to  carry,  by 
which  means  it  was  suspended  from  what  remained  of 
the  rafters. 

When  the  tea  came  to  be  poured  out,  it  issued  from 
the  pot  almost  black,  and  in  answer  to  the  exclamations 
of  A.  and  G.,  M.  said,  '  Oh,  yes,  of  course  she  had  put 
in  all  the  tea.  Wasn't  she  meant  to  do  so  ? '  This 
was  a  bitter  blow  to  the  others,  who  had  set  their  hearts 
on  a  refreshing  cup  at  sunrise.  M.,  however,  fertile  in 
expedient,  at  once  extracted  the  leaves  from  the  pot 
and  spread  them  on  a  stone  by  the  fire  to  dry,  remark- 
ing that  the  present  tea  was  strong  enough  without 
them,  and  they  would  make  good  enough  tea  in  the 
morning,  as  they  had  been  in  the  water  a  very  short 
time.  At  a  'later  period  of  the  evening,  A.  took  it 
into  her  head  to  sit  down,  quite  promiscuously,  upon 
this  very  stone,  and  so  carried  off  the  nucleus  of  the 
morning  cup  on  her  dress,  thus  making  G.  the  only 
one  of  the  party  who  had  not  plotted  against  the  sunrise 
tea,  a  fact  which  at  once  reconciled  him  to  its  loss. 

When  there  was  really  nothing  more  to  be  ex- 
tracted from  the  owl  or  the  bottles,  the  three  adven- 
turers made  a  promenade  on  the  little  plateau  on  which 
their  castle  stood.  The  lights  on  the  opposite  moun- 
tains were  wonderful.  High  up  on  the  Alps  a  flame 
would  appear  for  half  a  minute,  large  and  clear,  and 


HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHIiVRES     19 

then  vanish ;  sometimes  there  were  five  or  six  full 
broad  lights  all  in  existence  at  once,  stretching  from 
the  extreme  east  among  the  Bernese  Alps,  to  the 
Grand  Saleve  and  the  westernmost  Jura.  Brilliant 
beyond  all,  however,  were  the  distant  lights  of  the 
Grand  Quai  of  Geneva,  each  given  in  glittering  dupli- 
cate by  the  still  waters  which  border  the  current  of  the 
Rhone.  The  wooded  plain,  too,  at  the  foot  of  the  cone 
of  rock,  seemed  to  be  one  blaze  of  bonfires,  large  trees 
burning  as  they  stood,  and  black  figures,  frightfully 
like  Hartz  demons,  apparently  jumping  about  in  the 
flames.  This  added  immensely  to  the  effect  of  the 
night  scene,  and  the  travellers  congratulated  themselves 
largely  on  their  ggod  fortune  when  they  learned  the 
next  day  that  the  men  of  a  chalet  below  had  chosen 
this  particular  night  for  clearing  away  sundry  groups  of 
trees,  in  order  to  increase  the  neighbouring  pasturage. 
At  eleven  o'clock,  or  thereabouts,  the  moon  dis- 
appeared, and  it  was  time  to  think  of  bed.  On  this 
point  an  important  change  had  been  made  in  the 
arrangements.  The  left-hand  compartment  of  the 
chalet  was  so  exceedingly  dark  and  gloomy,  that  A. 
and  M.  preferred  the  idea  of  sleeping  by  the  fire  in  the 
warm  central  division,  which  had  so  far  been  used  as 
kitchen  and  drawing-room.  G.'s  apartment,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  so  utterly  exposed  to  every  breath  that 
chose  to  blow,  and  was  in  such  a  litter  with  bits  of 
stone  and  tufts  of  grass  growing  here  and  there,  and 
pieces  of  plank  lying  in  all  directions,  that  he  came  to 

c  2 


20     HOW  AVE   SLEPT  AT   THE   CHALET  DES   CH^VEES 

the  conclusion  that  all  three  had  better  sleep  in  the 
same  place.    Planks  and  logs  were  accordingly  arranged 
so  as  to  form  planes  of  various  inclinations,  as  each  one 
fancied,  on  which  they  might  lie  with  as  much  comfort 
as  may  in  the  nature  of  things  be  extracted  from  hard 
or  soft  wood,  the  present  material  being  decidedly  hard 
and  presumably  damp.     Then  all  had  a  final  half  basin 
of  heated  red  wine,  the  very  worst  thing  it  is  possible 
to  take  before  going  to  bed  ;  the  fire  was  made  up  with 
solid  logs ;  the  piece  of  door  was  dragged  out  of  its 
corner,  and  propped  so  as  to  cover  a  maximum  amount 
of  the  hole  by  which  entrance  to  the  hut  liad  been  won  ; 
sundry  holes  almost  as  large,  by  courtesy  called  windows, 
were  so  far  blocked  up  with  stoifes  as  to  render  it  a 
difficult  matter  for  anyone  to  get  through  from  the  out- 
side— though  who  should  attempt  to  get  through,  except 
the  mountain  demons,  no  one  could  say,  and  they  didn't 
suppose  that  stones  would  stop  them  if  they  had  a  mind 
to  come.     At  the  same  time  it  did  seem  very  probable, 
or  at  least  very  possible,  that  the  startling  appearance 
of  a  large  and  sustained  fire  in  the  chdlet  des  Mvres 
might  draw  some  of  the  rough  men  from  the  chalets 
below ;  and  so,  while  laughing  at  the  idea  of  its  being 
in  any  sort  of  way  a  necessary  precaution,  G.  thought  it 
wise  to  make  his  fortifications  as  strong  as  possible. 
By  common  consent  a  fine  club  was  rescued  from  the 
fire,  to  be  used  as  a  defensive  weapon  in  case  of  need  ; 
then  the  party  proceeded— not  to  undress,  but  to  dress 
themselves,  G.  assuming  his  waistcoat,  for  so  far  a  coat 


HOW   WE   SLEPT  AT   THE   CHALET  DES   CHEVEES    21 

alone  had  been  almost  too  much,  and  A.  and  M. 
wrapping  little  handkerchiefs  about  their  heads  in  the 
approved  style.  After  this  they  proceeded  in  a  body 
with  torches  to  investigate  the  dark  corners  of  the 
rejected  double-bedded  room ;  and  finally  the  candles 
were  put  out,  and  a  half-trembling  '  Good-night ! '  was 
wished  all  round. 

Of  course  each  of  the  three  had  determined  to  lie  as 
still  as  a  mouse,  and  make  no  noise  to  disturb  the 
others.  But  somehow  one's  bones  do  come  through  to 
the  skin  so  very  soon  when  the  mattress  is  composed  of 
roughish  five-inch  planks  laid  gridiron-wise,  that  one 
or  other  was  generally  on  the  turn.  And  however  well 
it  may  fit  at  first,  a  hollow^  place  in  a  log  of  wood 
doesn't  do  for  a  pillow  as  a  permanency,  especially 
when  the  rest  of  the  log  is  very  knobby,  and  the 
dozer's  head  wanders  uneasily  from  one  knob's  point 
to  another. 

When  all  was  over,  each  had  a  hazy  recollection  of 
a  black  dream,  the  leading  idea  of  which  was  a  sleepless 
night ;  but  whether  the  sleeplessness  was  a  reality,  or, 
as  so  often  happens,  merely  an  unpleasant  dream,  no 
one  could  feel  quite  sure.  While  all  was  yet  perfectly 
fresh  the  reports  ran  as  follows : — G.  believed  that  he 
had  slept  in  every  new  position  for  a  minute  or  two, 
until  his  bones  came  through,  when  he  turned  and 
slept  again,  and  so  on.  M.  asserted  that  she  had  not 
slept  at  all,  but  had  lain  in  tolerable  comfort  for  some 
time,  after  which  she  got  up  stealthily  and  sat  by  the 


22     HOW  AVE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHEVRES 

fire.  A.  confessed  at  once  that  she  was  seized  early  in 
the  night  with  a  fit  of  the  horrors,  and  lay  till  daybreak 
in  a  state  of  blank  fright.  It  was  remarkable,  however, 
that  neither  A.  nor  G.  knew  anything  of  M.'s  sitting 
by  the  fire,  and  that  each  thought  the  other  had  slept 
tolerably  soundly  all  night;  which  threw  an  air  of 
suspicion  upon  everyone's  story.  On  the  whole,  each 
of  the  party  would  probably  endeavour  to  disabuse  any 
rash  young  friends,  who  might  be  similarly  inclined,  of 
the  idea  that  under  the  given  circumstances  a  night  is 
short  or  a  log  soft. 

At  length  M.  announced,  in  a  voice  that  was  clearly 
glad  to  be  heard  again,  that  it  was  four  o'clock,  and 
that  something  like  colour  was  beginning  to  appear  in 
the  sky ;  upon  which  all  started  up  with  great  alacrity, 
privately  making  wry  faces  at  their  hard  beds,  but  each 
unwilling  to  say  the  first  word  of  abuse.  The  door  was 
soon  knocked  down,  and  the  fire,  still  smouldering, 
resuscitated  to  a  magnificent  extent ;  a  cup  of  Langlade 
and  a  little  roasting  fortified  the  party  for  the  morning 
air,  and  then  all  three  issued  forth  from  their  shelter 
and  waited  for  day.  M.  had  been  for  some  weeks  busy 
with  a  christening  frock  for  a  small  niece,  and  having 
prudently  brought  a  piece  of  it  with  her,  now  sat  down 
on  the  highest  rock  of  the  plateau  and  proceeded 
vigorously  with  the  large-stitch  parts  in  the  doubtful 
light. 

Already  there  was  enough  of  diSused  twilight  to 
render  Mont  Blanc  perfectly  visible.     Though  the  lake 


HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CH^VRES     23 

lay  fall  in  view,  and  the  whole  range  of  Alps  and  their 
neighbour  hills  for  two  hundred  miles  displayed  their 
jagged  horizon  of  grey  rock  and  snowy  points,  the  eye 
could  rest  on  nothing  but  the  king  of  mountains.  The 
marvellous  resemblance  which  the  outline  from  the 
north  bears  to  a  massive  human  head,  reclining  on  a 
pillow  of  snow  and  facing  the  east,  was  never  more 
striking  than  now.  The  straight  forehead,  the  short 
finely  chiselled  nose,  the  firm  mouth  and  flowing  beard, 
all  lay  calm  and  still  in  the  grey  repose  of  death.  No 
one  who  affects  to  see  a  likeness  to  the  old  Napoleon's 
head  can  have  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  the  moun- 
tain as  it  now  appeared ;  no  one  who  has  so  seen  it  can 
consider  it  much  short  of  positive  blasphemy  to  liken 
that  strong  and  delicate  profile  to  the  features  of  the 
ill-tempered  and  vulgar  Emperor. 

M.  had  not  much  time  for  her  embroidery.  There 
came  first,  for  a  single  instant,  a  suspicion  of  a  ray  of 
light  intercepted  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Diablerets, 
and  the  next  moment  a  simultaneous  cry,  their  first  and 
last,  from  A.  and  G.,  announced  that  the  sun,  still 
invisible,  had  struck  the  highest  crest  of  hair  which 
gathers  on  the  brow  of  the  gigantic  head.  For  a  few 
minutes  each  instant  brought  a  new  delight,  as  the 
different  levels  of  peaks  were  successively  gilded  by  the 
rising  sun.  Gradually  the  glittering  points  seemed  to 
descend,  fixing  in  turn  upon  all  the  salient  features  of 
the  profile.  The  mountain  woke  into  life  under  the 
magic  touch  of  light  and  heat :  the  face  was  no  longer 


24     HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHEVRES 

dead,  it  seemed  visibly  to  rejoice  in  tlie  reappearance  of 
its  daily  companion  and  friend. 

The  great  power  of  the  sun  for  the  last  month  or 
five  weeks  had  added  much  to  the  illusion  which  is 
owed  to  the  peculiar  outline  of  the  mountain  ;  for  exactly 
where  the  shoulder  of  the  reclining  giant  would  natu- 
rally lie,  a  huge  black  precipice  had  been  exposed  by  the 
melting  or  sinking  snow,  and  fifty  or  sixty  miles  of 
distance  reduced  this  to  the  very  facsimile  of  an  officer's 
epaulette. 

The  choicest  beauties  of  the  scene  did  not  last  long. 
Nature  is  not  prodigal  of  her  highest  efforts  of  light  and 
shade.  The  mountains  and  the  snow  remained  pre- 
cisely as  they  were  when  the  first  herald  of  the  sun 
appeared,  but  the  peculiar  charm  had  left  them,  only  to 
reappear  when  another  favourable  combination  should 
allow  the  grandest  portion  of  our  world  to  assume  again 
for  a  while  its  loveliest  dress.  No  sooner  had  the  sun 
risen  than  its  hydraulic  power  began  to  mar  the  scene  : 
a  haze  spread  over  all  the  plain  towards  the  west,  and 
only  paused  for  a  moment  in  its  upward  progress  to 
afford  a  hurried  view  of  the  distant  tops  of  the  French 
hills,  picked  out  against  the  still  unmeaning  sky  by 
the  golden  messengers  of  the  sun. 

With  more  of  awe  than  they  cared  to  confess,  and 
in  silence  which  they  almost  dared  not  break,  the  three 
adventurers  turned  at  length  to  the  hut  which  had  afforded 
them  so  kindly  a  shelter.  It  required  some  effort  to 
shake  off  the  feeling  that  oppressed  them  ;  and  all  felt 


HOW  WE    SLEPT   AT   THE    CHALET  DES   CHI:VKES     25 

a  certain  relief  when  a  few  light  words,  and  a  palpable 
return  to  the  more  commonplace  circumstances  of  their 
position,  expelled  the  overpowering  reality  of  a  too  great 
beauty.  It  has  never  come  back  upon  them  in  its  full 
fprce ;  perhaps  never  will  do  so.  The  human  mind  is 
not  capable  of  retaining  a  living  recollection  of  a  scene 
whose  loveliness  is  divine.  The  utmost  that  can  remain 
in  the  memory  is  the  consciousness  that  at  one  period 
of  existence  a  beauty  too  great  for  comprehension  has 
stirred  the  soul,  too  pure  for  words,  which  has  yet  left 
behind  it  a  certain  intelligence  not  possessed  before  by 
the  mind,  a  certain  proneness  to  discover  beauty  where 
it  is  not  strikingly  and  prominently  visible,  an  in- 
exhaustible consolation  in  the  idea  that  the  best  feelings 
of  heart  and  mind  have  been  face  to  face  with  the  most 
perfect  impersonation  of  nature,  and  have  carried  away 
from  the  meeting  some  portion  of  her  reflected  divinity. 
There  was  no  object  to  be  gained  by  a  longer  stay 
on  the  plateau,  so,  as  soon  as  G.  had  put  the  finishing 
touches  to  the  letters  which  recorded,  and  probably  still 
record,  the  initials  of  the  visitors  and  the  precise  date 
of  their  visit,  and  when  all  packing  was  satisfactorily 
completed,  the  descent  commenced  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  mountain.  The  object  of  this  change  of  route 
was  principally  to  arrive  as  soon  as  might  be  at  a  chalet 
where  water  for  ablution  could  be  procured,  and  milk 
for  breakfast.  Each  step  disclosed  such  masses  of  wild 
fruits  in  virgin  ripeness  that  G.  left  A.  and  M.  to  in- 
dulge their  appetites^  and  hastened  on  to  engage  a  cow, 


26   HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHIIVKES 

fearing  lest  the  morning's  milk  should  all  have  been 
put  into  the  cheese  caldron  before  the  party  could 
arrive.  This  would  certainly  have  happened,  for  there 
were  only  two  cows  unmilked  when  he  reached  Le 
Couchant,  or,  as  the  patois  map  of  the  commune  gave  it, 
Gu-au-tzin,  rendered  by  the  natives  (in  English  letters) 
Tsoo-ow-tchang. 

A.  and  M.  having  at  length  arrived,  the  three  pro- 
ceeded to  the  well,  an  immense  circular  tank  of  water 
iced  by  the  feverish  night  they  had  passed.  Through 
a  small  round  hole  cut  in  the  fir-trunks  which  formed 
the  cover,  they  drew  pailful  after  pailful  of  exquisitely 
pure  and  cold  water  by  means  of  a  balanced  pole,  and 
revelled  in  the  luxury  of  sponging  head  and  neck  and 
arms  with  unceasing  and  undiminished  enjoyment. 
The  unfortunate  cows  were  on  short  commons  of  water, 
all  the  minor  sources,  if  there  were  any,  being  dried  up  ; 
and,  knowing  well  the  meaning  of  the  round  hole  in  the 
cover  of  the  reservoir,  they  crowded  round  the  washing 
party  and  pressed  somewhat  unpleasantly  upon  them. 
Thus  G.,  for  instance,  was  wholly  engrossed  in  giving 
himself  sponge  shower-baths  from  a  pail  freshly  hoisted 
up,  standing  with  head  bent  submissively  to  receive  the 
grateful  stream,  when  suddenly  the  odour  of  new  milk 
came  with  owerpowering  strength  to  his  nostrils,  and 
he  felt  his  hair  caught  up  with  a  sound  like  that  of  a 
thousand  lampreys,  a  misguided  cow  having  taken  a 
fancy  bo  the  abundant  water  contained  in  it.  A.  and 
M.  had  less  ponderous  but  more  persistent  tormentors. 


HOW  WE  SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES  CHEVEES     27 

in  the  shape  of  sundry  goats,  which  evinced  an  insati- 
able desire  to  browse  upon  their  hats  and  wicker  baskets, 
and  were  of  course  able,  unlike  the  cows,  to  climb  up  to 
them  however  high  they  might  be  hung  on  the  heaps 
of  firewood. 

The  craving  for  fresh  water  was  at  last  in  some 
measure  appeased,  and  with  invigorated  appetite  they 
proceeded  to  a  small  paddock  enclosed  by  stone  walls, 
where  they  lay  on  their  shawls  under  the  shadow  of  the 
chalet,  with  their  faces  turned  towards  the  sweet  west 
wind.  Here  one  of  the  civil  men  brought  a  white  tub 
of  milk,  round  which  the  three  lay  to  breakfast,  the 
remaining  hemisphere  of  bread  and  a  fresh  supply  of 
butter  completing  the  feast.  As  if  that  were  not  enough, 
the  head  man  of  the  chalet,  pleased  with  the  money  which 
had  been  prudently  given  him  as  soon  as  the  cow  was 
engaged,  and  instigated  by  his  native  liberality,  brought 
in  addition  a  whole  goat,  as  to  its  milk,  in  a  separate 
bowl,  and,  greatest  treat  of  all,  a  perfect  little  goat's 
tomme,  reclining  in  a  bower  of  fresh  gentian  leaves.  It 
was  well  that  one  of  the  party  had  brought  a  small,  a 
very  small  bottle  of  brandy  to  qualify  the  milk,  for 
indeed  the  quantity  taken  needed  something  to  qualify 
it.  No  one  can  understand  the  full  force  of  the  temp- 
tation, who  has  not  found  himself  lying  on  soft  green 
grass  (a  Vicuna  shawl,  say,  intervening),  lulled  by  the 
deep  or  tinkling  bells  of  the  authors  of  his  feast,  fanned 
by  a  Jura  breeze,  and  shaded  from  the  early  sun  by  a 
Jura  chalet ;  a  white-wood  bowl  of  the  purest  possible 


28     HOW  WE   SLEPT  AT  THE   CHALET  DES   CHEVEES 

milk  rippling  its  gentle  blandishments  before  his  eyes, 
and  a  tastefully  carved  wooden  ladle  suggesting  the 
means  of  making  those  placid  smiling  charms  his  OAvn. 

M.  alone  could  in  any  way  be  called  temperate ;  she 
was  the  owner  of  the  brandy-bottle,  and  not  being  able 
to  imbibe  much  milk  even  when  disguised  with  brandy, 
she  soon  retired  from  all  active  part  in  the  meal,  and, 
making  over  the  brandy  to  G.,  worked  composedly  at 
her  niece's  christening  frock. 

One  thing  alone  could  be  called  a  drawback.  In 
one  corner  of  the  paddock  there  was  a  small  breach  in 
the  loose  wall,  and  through  this  an  inquisitive  young 
goat  essayed  to  visit  the  party.  They  knew  well 
enough  that  once  in  it  could  not  be  driven  out.  And 
the  chances  amounted  almost  to  a  certainty  that,  in 
evading  expulsion,  the  little  wretch  would  frisk  itself 
into  one  of  the  milk  bowls,  and  leave  the  paddock  in 
general  in  a  state  similar  to  that  of  the  room  whose 
occupant  was  annoyed  by  a  bluebottle  fly.  Thus  it 
was  necessary  constantly  to  make  up  the  breach  with 
temporary  fortifications,  which  the  persistent  goat  as 
constantly  pulled  down.  Blows — gently  administered, 
it  is  true — were  of  no  avail,  and  only  seemed  to  increase 
its  curiosity  ;  but,  by  one  means  or  another,  the  enemy 
was  kept  out,  G.  groaning  sadly  over  the  interruptions 
which  the  repairing  of  the  defences  cost  him.  It  is 
perhaps  not  fair  to  say  that  this  was  the  only  draw- 
back, for  A.,  whose  friends  were  wont  to  call  her 
slightly  fastidious,  was  troubled  by  a  small  species  of 


HOW  WE  SLEPT  AT  THE  CHALET.  DES  CHEVRES  29 

slug,  which  the  lovely  grass  she  admired  so  much 
seemed  to  produce  in  considerable  numbers.  These, 
disdaining  their  native  soil,  shewed  an  unvarying  and 
unanimous  desire  to  repose  on  the  shawls  of  the  party." 
At  length  it  was  time  to  start  for  the  lower  regions, 
by  a  wood-road  which  led  round  the  base  of  the  cone  to 
the  Chalet  de  Grantene.  We  have  not  space  for  describ- 
ing the  triumphant  jodeln  of  the  friendly  chalet  men 
there,  or  the  congratulatory  tremulousness  of  their 
master's  tail.  Neither  may  we  tell  of  the  excitement 
which  all  Arzier  felt  on  the  return  of  the  mad  people. 
Perhaps,  also,  it  is  unnecessary  to  add,  that  for  some 
months  none  of  the  party  could  shew  the  slightest  indi- 
cation of  cough  or  cold,  without  calling  forth  maternal 
groans  over  that  night  on  the  summit  of  the  Jura. 


30 


HOW   WE  MOUNTED   THE  OLDENHORN^ 

Some  of  my  readers  may  recollect  that  they  were 
carried  up  last  September  (1863)  to  see  the  sunrise  from 
a  summit  of  the  Jura  range.  They  must  now  take  a 
higher  and  a  wider  flight,  and,  crossing  many  leagues 
of  land  and  water,  deposit  themselves  for  a  while  in  the 
picturesque  valley  of  the  Upper  Ormont — Ormont 
dessus.  It  would  be  well  for  them  if  they  were  really 
in  that  lovely  spot.  A  comfortable  rustic  pe^ision  at 
three  and  a  half  francs  a  day  without  wine,  or  another 
at  four  francs  which  may  be  described  as  simply 
luxurious,  will  set  the  main  question  at  rest  even  for  a 
Briton  who  does  not  change  with  the  sky.  The  cheaper 
house  is  close  to  the  Grand'  Eau,  whose  rising  and 
falling  with  the  waxing  and  waning  power  of  the  sun 
on  the  glaciers  close  at  hand  may  be  watched  from  hour 
to  hour,  sometimes  from  minute  to  minute.  On  the 
tamer  side  of  the  valley,  though  such  an  epithet  even 
in  comparison  is  strangely  out  of  place,  the  world  is 
shut  out  by  the  lofty  green  and  grey  range  over  which 
Chaussy  and  La  Pare  and  Isenaux  preside ;  while  the 
opposite  barrier  is  formed  by  the  inexpressible  grandeur 
•   Comhill  MagaziTie,  July  1864. 


HOW  AVE   MOUNTED   THE   OLDENHORN  31 

of  the  amphitheatre  which  contains  the  Creux  de  Champ, 
formed  of  perpendicular  rocks  down  which  the  glaciers 
creep  wherever  they  find  an  exception  to  the  prevailing 
perpendicularity,  and  countless  cascades,  of  every  size 
and  shape  wherein  most  beauty  may  be  found,  come 
tumbling  headlong  with  no  such  careful  search.  Once 
in  the  Creux  de  Champ  it  might  be  supposed  that  its 
precipices  reach  the  skies ;  but  on  emerging  it  is  found 
that  nature  has  reared  a  higher  trophy  still,  for  clear 
above  all  stretches  up  a  steep  and  iceless  mass  of  rock, 
the  queen  of  all  that  region — the  Oldenhorn. 

It  was  currently  reported  in  the  Upper  Ormont 
valley  that  two  English  ladies  had  ascended  this  moun- 
tain a  year  or  two  before,  and  on  enquiry  at  the  pension 
it  was  found  that  a  son  of  the  hou^e  had  been  one  of  the 
guides  on  that  occasion.  What  had  once  been  done  by 
two  English  ladies,  two  English  ladies  might  do  again, 
and  A.  and  M.  had  accordingly  set  their  hearts  upon 
making  the  attempt  as  soon  as  G.  joined  them,  for,  as 
in  the  previous  year,  that  male  person's  holidays  began 
rather  late.  In  the  Pension  Gottraux  there  was  a  some- 
what motley  collection  of  guests,  and  among  them  a 
remarkably  pleasant  family,  whose  oldest  son  was  a 
manly  Swiss  of  sixteen  or  seventeen,  with  much  of 
botanical  and  other  knowledge.  Madame  D'E.  was 
anxious  that  her  son  should  prove  a  good  mountaineer, 
and  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  the  English  trio  she 
proposed  that  he  should  accompany  them  to  make  trial 
of  his  powers. 


32  HOW  WE   MOUNTED   THE   OLDENHORX 

It  was  about  half-past  three  in  the  afternoon  when 
the  party  left  the  pension,  the  Oldenhom  overhead 
gazing  with  defiant  contempt  upon  the  many  adieux. 
Never  was  an  excursion  commenced  with  such  evil  pro- 
mise. M.  had  privately  confessed  to  A.  a  violent 
headache,  with  intermittent  dizziness,  while  A.,  in  her 
anxiety  to  cure  a  blister,  had  aggravated  it  to  an  all  but 
incapacitating  extent ;  D'E.  had  run  the  point  of  an 
alpenstock  into  the  top  of  his  foot  a  day  or  two  before, 
and  G.  suffered  silently  spasmodic  premonitories.  And 
never  was  such  promise  so  belied ;  for  the  result  was 
one  great  total  of  complete  enjoyment. 

The  work  for  the  evening  was  to  be  a  four  hours' 
walk  by  the  Col  de  Fillon^  and  up  the  left  bank  of  the 
Reuschbach  to  the  Ghdlets  cVAudon,  which  were  to  be 
reached  between  eight  and  nine  o'clock  and  left  at  two 
or  three  the  next  morning,  some  one  having  picked  up 
an  idea  that  beds  were  to  be  procured  in  the  straw  in 
one  of  the  cluster  of  chalets.  The  Grand'  Eau  has  two 
main  sources  :  the  one  from  the  Creux  de  Champ,  con- 
sisting of  the  water  which  pours  down  from  innumerable 
points  of  the  Sexrouge  glacier,  and  also  of  large  supplies 
welling  up  from  dozens  of  limpid  sources  in  the  level 
meadows  at  the  mountain  foot ;  the  other  sent  forth  by 
the  northern  slope  of  the  same  glacier,  and  bursting 
from  the  rocks  in  a  clear  arch  for  the  last  hundred  feet 
or  two  of  its  fall.  This  is  the  Dard,  and  up  its  course 
their  path  lay  until  the  fall  was  passed  on  the  right 
hand.      There  are  few  things  more  charming   among 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE   OLDENHORN  33 

Alpine  delights  than  to  lie  on  a  summer's  day  on  the 
richly  flowered  grass,  beyond  the  farthest  point  to  which 
the  spray  of  a  glacier  fall  can  fly,  and  watch  the  span  of 
the  arch  becoming  broader  with  the  growing  power  of 
the  sun  upon  the  ice.  As  the  forenoon  minutes  pass 
swiftly  on,  the  unbroken  stream  flies  farther  and  farther 
from  the  face  of  the  rock,  its  volume  sensibly  increasing ; 
trout  might  rise  where  in  the  morning  all  was  dry 
gravel,  and  by  the  time  that  hunger  steps  in  to  end 
the  romance,  the  whole  scene  has  passed  through  in- 
numerable variations  of  beauty,  each  in  its  turn  the 
most  beautiful.  This  evening,  however,  their  minds 
were  intent  upon  other  things;  the  Dard  might  leap 
and  dance  in  its  wild  fall  as  madly  as  it  chose,  they  had 
no  eyes  for  its  grand  and  graceful  fling  :  the  thoughts  of 
t(5-morrow's  labours  and  dangers  sat  visibly  upon  more 
than  one  brow,  and  perhaps  some  fear  of  coming  beds 
intruded  itself  among  loftier  cares. 

After  a  time  a  small  stream  was  reached  which 
flowed  eastwards,  the  Dard  having  passed  away  to  the 
west,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  way  the  glacier  falls 
precipitated  themselves  into  this  stream,  which  carries 
their  waters  into  the  Saane,  and  thence  by  the  Aar  and 
the  Rhine  tp  the  German  Ocean.  Thus  of  two  falls  from 
the  same  glacier,  within  rifle-shot  of  each  other,  one 
carries  the  debris  of  the  Oldenhorn  to  puzzle  the  delicate 
fish  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  other  will  float  a 
piece  of  Olden  pine  to  be  picked  up  on  the  silent  sands 

D 


34      HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHORN 

of  Scarborough.  ^  Even  this  phenomenon  did  not  engage 
their  attention  long,  for  now  Alexandre,  our  guide, 
suddenly  left  the  beaten  track  which  would  have  led  to 
La  Reusch  and  Gsteig  (Chatelet),  and,  crossing  the 
stream,  plunged  into  a  steep  and  pathless  pine  forest. 
At  the  upper  end  of  this  he  expected  to  strike  a  path 
skirting  the  foot  of  the  precipices  on  the  right,  by  which 
means  '  a  good  half-hour '  could  be  saved.  But  short 
cuts  are  bad  roads.  After  a  mile  or  two  of  very  hard 
work,  each  difficult  step  rewarded,  it  is  true,  by  some 
fresh  majesty  in  the  surrounding  trees,  the  party  was 
brought  to  a  sudden  stop  by  a  scene  of  such  chaotic 
confusion  as  defies  description  by  pen  or  pencil. 
'  Behold  a  true  eboulement ! '  was  all  that  Gottraux 
could  say,  referring  to  the  eboulement  of  the  Diablerets 
which  was  to  be  the  next  course  attempted  by  the  throe 
English.  And  indeed  that  was  exactly  what  it  was : 
a  vast  mountain  of  rock  had  fallen,  leaving  a  deep 
chasm  from  top  to  bottom  of  the  precipice  overhead, 
and  sweeping  down  in  its  course  a  broad  belt  of  forest, 
and  alas !  the  very  path  for  which  the  travellers  had 
been  making.  It  seemed  at  the  first  glance  impossible 
to  cross  the  track  of  the  rock  avalanche ;  but  in  the 
Alps,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  impossibilities  are 

'  Murray  did  not  allow  this.  In  his  *  Clue  Map  of  Switzerland  ' 
(9th  edition,  1861),  he  made  the  Saane  flow  on  contentedly  till  it 
had  passed  Freiburg,  and  almost  reached  the  battlefield  of  Laupen, 
when  some  evil  impulse  turned  it  southward,  to  be  finally  lost  in  the 
Schwarze  See  ;  whereas  the  local  belief  is,  that  it  flows  past  Laupen 
and  falls  into  the  Aar  some  fifteen  miles  below  Berne. 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED   THE   OLDENHORN  35 

wont  to  melt  before  determination  and  care,  and  in  no 
long  time  the  path  was  struck  on  the  opposite  side,  at 
the  point  where  its  continuity  had  met  with  so  sudden 
a  solution.  But  the  word  '  path '  is  a  misnomer,  if  it 
conveys  any  such  idea  as  it  might  do  on  a  Scotch  or 
English  hillside  :  it  was  a  thing  of  faith  rather  than  of 
sight ;  and  to  '  miss  the  path '  amounted  to  a  shallow 
euphemism  for  breaking  one's  neck.  Unfortunately 
the  latter  was  the  form  in  which  the  affair  presented 
itself  to  A.'s  mind,  and  accordingly  she  did  not  display 
too  much  alacrity  when  the  path  came  periodically  to 
more  complete  disappearances  at  the  critical  points. 
Gottraux  confessed  the  next  day  that  he  had  brought 
them  by  this  path  in  order  to  test  their  powers  of  head 
and  legs,  and  that  at  one  peculiarly  awkward  place  he 
had  turned  to  D'E.  and  whispered  that  the  great 
demoiselle  could  not  manage  the  Oldenhorn.  He  had 
not  taken  national  character  into  his  calculations, 
however,  and  A.  nobly  proved  him  wrong  when  it  came 
to  the  point. 

As  considerable  time  had  been  lost  in  one  way  or 
other,  they  now  made  what  haste  they  could,  stopping, 
however,  to  admire  to  the  full  the  grand  loveliness  of 
the  broken  falls  of  the  Reusch.  Before  very  long  they 
had  ascended  by  a  series  of  zigzags,  with  a  constant  lift 
as  severe  as  the  Lantern  Tower  of  York  Minster,  to  the 
top  of  the  precipitous  rocks,  when  they  found  themselves 
on  the  edge  of  a  small  and  almost  level  pasturage — the 
Olden  Alp,  down  the  middle  of  which  the  Reusch  cut  its 

D  2 


36  HOW    WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHOEN 

noisy  way  with  the  puerile  waste  of  power  of  one  whose 
first  important  plunge  has  not  been  made.  The 
pleasant  grass  was  dotted  thickly  with  cows  and  goats, 
and  the  large  cluster  of  chalets  lay  agreeably  near,  the 
whole  hemmed  in  on  the  east  by  the  harsh  and  naked 
mass  of  the  Sanetschhorn,  too  grand  to  be  grotesque, 
yet  bordering  closely  on  the  fanciful  in  some  of  its  forms, 
and  on  the  west  by  the  suspended  precipices  round 
whose  other  side  their  way  had  lain.  At  the  farther 
end,  as  there  was  still  light  enough  to  perceive,  were 
massed  the  snows  at  the  base  of  the  Oldenhorn,  the 
inhospitable  steepness  of  the  peak  itself  affording  them 
no  long  resting-place  on  its  sides.  Above  the  snow,  and 
more  to  the  left,  the  edge  of  the  Sanfleuron  glacier 
(patois  Tzanfleuron)  frowned  seemingly  close  at  hand, 
and  brought  home  to  their  hearts,  not  without  an 
accompanying  impulse  of  chill  awe,  the  fact  that  they 
were  approximating  at  this  late  hour  of  the  night  to  the 
regions  of  perpetual  ice  and  snow. 

At  last  the  right  chalet  was  reached,  and  they 
entered  without  much  ceremony.  There  were  human 
beings  within,  for  grunts  plusquam-porcine  issued  from 
the  darkness,  and  as  Gottraux's  tongue  was  only  French, 
and  the  party  had  now  passed  from  Vaud  to  Berne, 
D'E.  enquired  in  his  worst  German  whether  beds  were 
to  be  had  there.  The  inmates  evidently  did  not  under- 
stand him,  nor  he  their  rejoinder  ;  but  the  others  were 
hungry  and  tired,  and  so  took  a  hopeful  view  of  the 
matter,  and  boldly  interpreted  the  sounds  to  mean  yes 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED   THE   OLDENHORN  37 

and  a  welcome.  Then  something  shuffled  along  the 
floor  and  began  to  blow,  and  in  a  few  seconds  the 
smouldering  embers  produced  a  blaze,  and  a  motionless 
figure  in  an  apology  for  a  gown  was  seen  holding  a  piece 
of  unlighted  candle,  promptly  put  to  its  natural  use  by 
the  new-comers.  Knapsacks  were  taken  off,  a  board 
was  propped  up  to  form  a  table,  bread  and  wurst  and 
tea  and  coffee  were  unpacked,  and  at  last  the  landlady 
was  galvanised  into  exposing  a  three-legged  pan  of 
water  to  the  now  handsome  blaze,  and  producing  a 
vessel  of  cream  two  feet  high,  from  which  they  baled 
for  themselves  full  basins  until  all  were  for  the  present 
appeased.  The  fire  was  in  the  middle  of  the  earthen 
floor,  kept  within  moderate  bounds  by  three  stone  walls 
about  the  height  of  the  cream-jug,  on  which  dusky 
human  figures  began  to  make  their  appearance,  creep- 
ing out  from  different  corners  and  sitting  in  lumps 
on  the  walls  to  enjoy  the  new  warmth.  Fortunately 
the  housewife  was  a  very  superior  woman,  who  compre- 
hended that  when  a  thing  was  asked  for  she  must  get 
it  if  she  had  it.  One  of  the  men,  too,  was  good  for  an 
answer,  or  at  least  a  responsive  motion,  about  twice 
out  of  three  times ;  so  that  what  with  signs  and  what 
with  broken  German  words,  all  things  necessary  were 
procured,  with  the  sole  and  strange  exception  of  butter, 
for  converting  what  had  been  brought  into  a  most 
promising  meal. 

Suddenly,  however,  as  they  were  on  the  point  of 
sitting  down  to  enjoy  it,  a  rush  of  many  feet  was  heard 


38  HOW  AVE   MOUNTED   THE   OLDENHORN 

outside  the  chalet,  the  door  flew  open,  and  with  screams 
and  yells  a  dirtier  half-dozen  precipitated  themselves 
through  the  opening,  and  banged  the  door  behind  them. 
The  first  impulse  of  one  at  least  of  the  invaded  party 
was  to  open  in  his  pocket  a  large  knife  carried  for 
feeding  purposes ;  but  before  he  could  do  so,  and  before 
A.  and  M.  had  time  or  breath  to  scream,  the  intruders 
ranged  themselves  against  the  wall  on  either  side  of  the 
door,  and  relapsed  into  total  inanimateness.  At  the 
same  time  a  rapid  succession  of  angry  roars,  ac- 
companied by  sounds  which  shewed  that  some  horned 
beast  was  charging  the  chalet  walls — choosing,  let  us 
hope,  the  soft  places — explained  the  irruption  of  men. 
The  woman  muttered  something  of  which  the  word  Stier 
formed  a  part,  and  pointed  to  a  dark  comer  whence  the 
men  drew  each  a  long  pole.  Then,  sallying  forth  as  if 
moved  by  very  deliberate  clock-work,  they  belaboured 
the  unfortunate  bull  until  he  took  himself  off".  *  He  is 
diabolical  when  strangers  come,'  she  was  understood  to 
explain,  ^  and  the  very  Teufel  if  they  are  women.' 

Tea  was  a  delightful  success,  notwithstanding  a 
practical  difficulty  which  arose  from  the  obstinacy  of  a 
rickety  old  bench.  That  piece  of  furniture  was  equal  to 
standing  safely  by  itself,  and  did  not  quite  fall  when 
one  person  sat  at  each  end  and  one  in  the  middle,  but 
under  no  other  condition  was  equilibrium  possible. 
This  was  only  learned  by  the  experience  of  two 
catastrophes,  when  the  rising  of  one  of  the  party  was 
followed   bv   the   subsidence   of  the   other  two  amid 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHOEN  39 

avalanches  of  plates  and  cups  and  food.  After  this  it 
was  enacted  that  no  one  must  get  up  without  giving 
due  warning.  When  tea  was  finished,  the  subject  of 
beds  came  naturally  into  prominence,  and  D'E.  asked 
the  woman  to  shew  the  way  to  the  expected  straw. 
She  shook,  or  rather  swung,  her  head  in  a  hopelessly 
puzzled  way,  but  at  length,  on  constant  reiteration  of 
the  word  Stroh  in  connection  with  bed,  she  seemed  to 
understand  what  was  wanted,  and  opening  a  sort  of 
door  in  the  side  of  the  place  where  they  had  fed,  went 
through  with  the  candle  and  pointed  into  the  half- 
victorious  darkness.  She  was  not  the  only  one  of 
the  group  to  point !  This,  then,  at  length,  was  the 
meaning  of  Stroh : — the  darkest,  dirtiest  little  cupboard, 
four  feet  high,  resting  on  the  ground,  with  two  beds 
berthwise  in  its  height  stuffed  with  squalid  patchwork, 
the  whole  propped  against  the  wall,  and  used  as  a  table. 
The  face  of  the  upper  layer  of  reclining  humanity  would 
be  within  an  inch  or  two  of  the  under-side  of  the  table, 
a  favourable  position,  doubtless,  for  speculating  upon 
the  materials  that  might  be  thrown  onto  it  during 
occupancy,  while  the  lower  layer  could  enjoy  the  tattoo 
of  a  drowsy  cowherd,  sitting  on  the  table  and  making 
music  with  his  pendant  iron  heels.  A.  said,  '  Never  ! ' 
and  M.  said,  '  Never ! '  and  the  party  fled. 

It  now  struck  G.  that,  as  corn  is  not  grown  in  great 
quantities  at  glacier  altitudes,  dried  grass  might  convey 
more  meaning  than  Stroh  to  their  hostess's  mind,  and 
accordingly   he   put  his  idea   into  such  words  as    his 


40  HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHOEN 

ignorance  suggested,  and  also  made  imaginary  hay. 
Now,  at  length,  they  were  on  the  right  track  ;  sleeping 
on  hay  was  clearly  a  routine  affair,  whereas  Stroh  was 
an  unknown  bed.  This  time  she  led  the  way  with 
alacrity  through  a  hole  in  the  opposite  wall,  and  ushered 
the  sleep-desiring  five — for  Gottraux  accompanied  them 
with  a  lighted  lantern  he  had  picked  up  in  detachments 
— into  the  stable  where  the  cows  were  milked,  empty 
now  of  all  but  one  sick  heifer.  About  eight  feet  from 
the  ground  a  large  shelf,  decked  with  abundant  cobweb, 
stood  out  from  the  wall,  with  a  ladder  leading  up  to  it : 
placing  the  candle  so  that  the  hay  on  the  shelf  might 
be  seen,  the  woman  pointed  silently  to  the  primitive 
staircase,  and  departed. 

They  looked  at  the  shelf,  and  they  looked  at  each 
other.  A.  was  seen  to  shrink  into  smaller  compass  as 
the  involuntary  hand  drew  in  her  draperies,  while  a 
blank  grey  look  came  over  her  face,  such  as  was  wont 
to  appear  there  when  impossibilities  presented  them- 
selves for  performance.  Gottraux  was  the  first  to  move  : 
he  had  borrowed  a  dried  calfskin  from  one  of  the  men, 
and  with  this  clutched  about  him,  and  a  fiery  handker- 
chief tied  round  his  bushy  black  head  and  swarthy  face, 
he  mounted  the  ladder  and  flung  himself  down  in  an 
uncouth  heap  at  one  end  of  the  shelf.  D'E.  ascended 
next ;  then  G.  was  ordered  up  ;  and  M.  led  jauntily  the 
feminine  division.  A.  b.eing  tall,  five  or  six  steps  of  the 
ladder  brought  her  face  to  a  level  with  the  shelf,  and 
there  it  remained  for  some  time  significantly  expressing 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE   OLDENHOEN  41 

unwillingness  to  proceed ;  for  Gottraux  was  now  sitting 
up  on  end,  and  with  his  calfskin,  hair  outwards,  and  red 
head-dress,  and  the  pattern  of  the  lantern-side  projected 
on  his  face,  he  made  that  part  of  the  shelf  look  the 
reverse  of  tempting;  while  in  its  way  A.'s  own  end 
contrived  to  look  equally  uninviting.  However,  it  must 
be  done,  and  at  length  she  crept  up  and  subsided  with 
a  protesting  shudder.  But  Gottraux  was  not  satisfied. 
He  called  attention  to  some  foreign  substance,  which 
cropped  up  here  and  there  at  the  female  end,  and  bade 
them  extract  it  from  the  hay;  when  to  every  one's 
surprise  it  proved  to  be  an  opportune  duvet,  with  which 
A.  and  M.  at  once  gladly  covered  themselves. 

The  order  of  arrangement  was  this :  the  five  lay 
parallel,  Gottraux  at  the  extreme  right,  and  at  a  small 
interval  D'E.,  with  G.  near  him;  then  after  a  con- 
siderable gap  came  M.,  flanked  by  A.  The  lantern  was 
put  out,  though  not  without  dissentient  votes,  and  then 
it  was  found  that  to  those  who  were  so  inclined,  the 
holes  in  the  roof  presented  favourable  opportunities  for 
observing  the  transit  of  the  stars.  But  little  was  done 
in  that  way,  for  the  business  of  the  night  soon  com- 
menced in  real  earnest :  it  may  be  summed  up  in  one 
word — fleas.  If  a  supplementary  word  be  required,  it 
is  forthcoming;  it  is — snores.  The  former  will  convey 
a  depth  of  meaning  to  many  a  troubled  mind  ;  but  it  is 
probable  that  the  full  force  of  the  latter  was  never  so 
completely  felt  as  on  this  occasion ;  for,  considering  all 
the   circumstances,  there   was  something  so  uniquely 


42  HOW  WE   MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHORN 

horrible  in  Alexandre  Gottraux's  snore,  that  its  victims 
doubt  the  possibility  of  a  successful  rival  performance. 
It  was  two    distinct    snores,  the    ascending    and   the 
descending,  each  frightfully  complicated  and  subject  to 
astonishing  maxima  in  its  execution,  maxima  being  the 
opposite  of  lulls.     Sometimes  the  ascent  was  a  loud  and 
jubilant  trumpeting,   ringing  out  clearly  through  the 
cold  night  air,  and  then  again  it  was  subtle  music  of 
more  dirge-like  type ;  the  descent  was  a  deep  prolonged 
groan,  which   shook  the  rafters  of  the  building,  and 
cruelly  wrung  the  English  nerves.     Only  the  English 
nerves,  for  fortunate  D'E.  was  so  fast  asleep  that  even 
an  injustice  to  which  he  was  subjected  by  G.  failed  to 
rouse    him.      Ideas    of    space   and  position    become 
shockingly  confused  under  such  circumstances  as  the 
present,    and   perhaps   G.'s   bodily   torments   did   not 
allow  much  calculation  on  his  part.     At  any  rate,  he 
conceived  the  idea  that  the  snores  proceeded  from  D'E.'s 
averted  head,  and  consequently  admonished  him  with 
gentle  heel  in   the  hope  of  mitigating  the  nuisance. 
This  having  no  effect,  he  became  enraged  and  struck 
out  with  his  left  elbow,  taking  poor  D'E.  in  the  short 
ribs :    D'E.  flinched  palpably,  but  the  snore — at  that 
moment  in  the  full  swing  of  a  triumphant  ascent — went 
serenely  on,  without  the  gasp  which  is  usually  observed 
to  follow  an  aggressive  measure   of  this  description  ; 
from  which  G.  understood  that  he  had  make  a  mistake. 
Another    disturbing    element  most   unexpectedly   ap- 
peared,  in   the    shape   of   loud   idiotic    explosions   of 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE   OLDENHORN  43 

laughter,  which  broke  at  intervals  from  various  members 
of  the  chalet  family  ;  not  choruses,  but  solitary  roars,  as 
each  one  realised  some  unwonted  scene  of  the  evening. 
It  was  consoling  to  humanity  to  know  that  there  was  so 
much  of  life  in  these  fellow-creatures,  but  the  noise  was 
a  most  aggravating  anti-soporific. 

About  one  o'clock  things  became  a  little  better ; 
each  member  of  the  family  in  the  next  compartment  had 
laughed ;  the  fleas  had  exhausted  their  powers ;  the 
snoring  had  become  a  normal  condition  of  existence  :  it 
seemed  almost  possible  to  sleep.  But  it  was  not  to  be. 
The  heifer  below  had  so  far  been  quiet ;  it  now  began 
to  dance,  and  mountain  heifers  sound  or  sick  wear 
bells.  For  a  few  minutes  this  was  writhingly  endured ; 
then  one  after  another  started  up,  and  declared  it  was 
time  for  breakfast.  Gottraux  and  D'E.  were  maltreated 
into  waking,  a  match  was  struck  while  they  were  still 
in  the  hay,  and  the  party  descended. 

Breakfast  did  not  occupy  much  time,  for  no  one  was 
inclined  to  eat  anything,  though  large  demands  were 
made  upon  the  pitchers  in  which  tea  and  coffee  had 
been  brewed.  All  were  in  a  state  of  half-feverish  im- 
patience to  be  out  and  off,  and  about  half-past  two  the 
start  was  made,  under  the  guidance  of  a  glittering  frosty 
moon  which  seemed  to  give  a  new  character  to  every- 
thing on  which  its  rays  fell.  The  moon  is  in  the  way 
of  doing  this,  reaching  further  than  the  surface  and 
planting  a  spark  of  ghostly  life  in  the  heart  of  inanimate 
things.     The  English  members  of  the  party  were  by  this 


44     HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHORN 

time  familiar  enough  with  the  appearance  of  a  glacier, 
but  seen  by  moonlight  the  blue  dip  of  the  Sanfleuron 
was  something  entirely  new  to  them.  It  was  a  living 
thing,  possessed  of  divers  orders  of  spiritual  existence, 
and  they  walked  along  in  silent  awe,  as  in  the  confessed 
presence  of  these. 

Half  an  hour  of  this,  a  sharp  look-out  being  kept  by 
Gottraux  for  the  diabolic  bull,  brought  them  to  some- 
thing more  practical  in  the  shape  of  the  first  snow, 
forming  a  bridge  over  the  infant  Keusch — strictly  infant 
now,  for  its  sources  were  bound  up  by  a  biting  frost, 
and  its  voice  had  ceased  for  the  time.  The  snow  was 
smooth  and  level  and  delightfully  crisp,  and  the  fresh 
crystals,  one  taken  up  after  another  in  ceaseless  succes- 
sion by  the  swiftly  moving  eye,  seemed  to  dance  exult- 
ingly  in  the  presence  of  unwonted  admirers.  Day  soon 
began  to  break,  marking  its  appearance  in  their  imme- 
diate neighbourhood  by  a  change  rather  in  the  character 
than  in  the  amount  of  light.  But  on  the  proud  crests 
of  the  surrounding  precipices  an  imperceptible  warmth 
of  colour  was  suggested,  to  the  mental  rather  than  as  yet 
to  the  bodily  eye,  which  spoke  of  some  influence  more 
impassioned  than  the  convent  coldness  of  the  virgin 
wanderer  of  the  skies.  After  a  time,  D'E.  startled  the 
party  by  announcing  that  he  had  two  shadows ;  and 
when  they  all  stood  in  a  row  to  mark  the  curious  phe- 
nomenon, the  effect  of  the  ten  shade-pictures  was  very 
strange.  If  Peter  Schlemil  had  been  there,  he  might 
have  come  to  some  more  satisfactory  arrangement ;  but 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE   OLDENHOKN  45 

he  must  have  made  haste,  for  the  conquering  sun 
banished  the  left-hand  shadows  before  many  yards  more 
of  snow  had  been  traversed. 

But  now  the  snow  was  no  longer  level;  smooth 
still,  for  it  lay  on  a  sheet  of  ice,  but  very  steep.  Gottraux 
cut  foot-holes  athwart  the  slope,  and  by  this  means  the 
highest  point  of  snow  was  reached,  at  the  foot  of  the 
precipices  on  which  it  had  been  unable  to  lodge.  These 
were  now  to  be  skirted  eastward  until  they  should 
assume  an  assailable  character,  and  the  skirting  process 
was  no  pleasant  one.  There  was  not  a  level  inch  for  the 
foot  to  rest  upon,  the  steep  slope  commencing  from  the 
solid  perpendicular  rock.  Moreover,  the  snow  reached 
within  four  or  five  inches  of  the  foot  of  the  precipices, 
and  that  extent  of  sloping  shale  was  accordingly  the  only 
available  path;  while  here  and  there  the  snow  encroached, 
not  soft  and  deep,  but  frozen  into  thin  ice  of  most 
persuasive  slipperiness,  as  the  edges  of  such  snow-fields 
usually  are.  It  might  be  nothing  to  a  practised  moun- 
taineer, but  it  was  very  trying  for  beginners,  inasmuch 
as  the  slightest  slip  must  have  led  to  a  long  glissade 
down  a  slope  of  forty  or  fifty  degrees,  with  ragged 
boulders  below  stretching  up  inhospitable  arms  to  receive 
the  prey. 

At  length  Gottraux  came  to  a  stand,  and  announced 
that  they  must  now  go  up  the  rock  on  the  right.  It 
certainly  was  lower  than  it  had  so  far  been,  and  the 
surface  was  more  broken ;  but  still  it  looked  alarmingly 
like  a  ruinous  house  side,  and  even  Gottraux's  goat-like 


46  HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHORN 

ascent  failed  to  inspire  confidence  into  the  dismayed 
adventurers.  It  was  mere  ignorance  on  their  part,  and 
before  the  day  was  half  over  they  had  learned  to  look 
upon  such  things  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  had  risen 
to  the  requirements  of  the  situation  ;  but  they  shuddered 
now — and  the  chair  seems  to  sink  through  the  floor  as 
the  scene  returns — when  the  eye  wandered  disobediently 
to  the  slope  of  snow,  and  suggested  the  only  possible 
result  of  a  fall.  This  was  the  first  of  many  like  difficul- 
ties, for  they  had  reached  that  part  of  the  mountain  which 
Mr.  HinchlifF  has  graphically  likened  to  a  giant  staircase 
with  sloping  steps ;  the  edges,  too,  of  the  steps  were 
frittered  away,  and  the  loose  shale  lurked  treacherously, 
at  the  steepest  points,  like  some  ruined  stair  at  the  foot 
of  which  our  explorations  of  an  abbey  or  a  castle  are 
brought  to  an  end.  Every  angular  point  of  the  body 
must  serve  for  a  hand  or  a  crimponed  foot ;  the  elbows 
must  know  how  to  cling  grimly,  and  the  knees,  and  on 
occasion  the  very  nose,  must  be  ready  to  save  a  slip  of 
half  an  inch  from  becoming  a  fatal  fall.  And  thus  they 
crept  slowly  up,  Gottraux  approving  himself  a  perfect 
lady's  guide,  always  cheerful,  and  taking  a  pleasure  in 
making  their  difficult  work  less  hard ;  encouraging  them 
up  the  possible  places,  and  dragging  them  up  the  im- 
possible with  the  handle  of  his  axe ;  they  all  the  while 
feeling  like  infinitesimal  units  clinging  to  nothing,  and 
oppressed  by  the  conviction  which  hangs  about  the  face 
of  a  precipice,  that  the  slightest  puff  of  wind  must  blow 
them  ofi*.     But  there  was  a  grandeur  of  penetration  in 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHOKN  47 

the  absolute  beauty  of  each  vocal  peak  and  mountain- 
top,  whicb  crushed  scornfully  through  such  human 
weaknesses  as  fear  half  undiscovered  and  incipient 
fatigue,  and  made  its  way  irresistibly  to  those  recesses 
of  the  heart  where  dwells  the  nearest  approach  to  the 
appreciation  of  more  than  mortal  loveliness. 

In  course  of  time  they  came  to  the  true  level  of  the 
Sanfleuron  glacier,  and  some  of  the  party  were  anxious 
to  make  a  digression  onto  its  smooth  and  tempting 
surface,  which  extended  without  an  apparent  break  for 
leagues  and  leagues  towards  the  east,  and  south,  and 
west.  But  some  roughish  country  lay  between  their 
present  position  and  the  nearest  edge  of  the  glacier  ;  so 
the  more  prudent  heads  decided  that  it  was  best  to  get 
to  the  top  of  the  Oldenhorn  first,  and  take  the  San- 
fleuron on  their  way  down,  if  they  had  not  found  out 
by  that  time  that  merely  up  and  down  the  mountain 
would  be  quite  sufficient  for  their  powers. 

Their  work  now  lay  before  them  ;  for  the  Oldenhorn 
rises  in  a  sheer  precipice  from  the  west  side  of  the  glacier, 
and  the  ridge  up  whose  edge  their  way  must  lie  sprang 
from  the  spot  where  they  stood,  and  lay  extended  as  it 
were  up  the  mountain's  side  like  the  contorted  back  of 
some  huge  antediluvian.  Along  this  they  toiled,  a  mark 
for  the  blazing  sun,  until  the  base  of  the  final  cone  was 
reached.  Its  only  accessible  side  was  a  mass  of  loose 
shaly  stones,  moving  down  bodily  when  a  step  was 
made  in  advance,  and  carrying  the  climber  back 
through  half  the  length  of  his  stride.     Here  Gottraux 


48     HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHORN 

made  a  determined  stand  on  a  narrow  ledge,  which 
afforded  no  room  for  sitting  down,  but  had  the  advan- 
tage of  an  agreeable  back  to  lean  against,  and  com- 
manded an  uninterrupted  view  of  the  vast  Sanfleuron 
far  below,  from  its  very  edge  at  the  foot  of  the  precipice 
on  whose  face  they  stood.  They  must  get  some  fotce^ 
their  careful  guide  told  them,  before  the  last  struggle, 
having  observed,  perhaps,  some  indications  of  giving 
way.  So  the  bottles  were  brought  out,  and  they  pro- 
ceeded to  get  what  force  they  could  from  crude  red  wine. 
None  of  the  four  will  ever  forget  that  ledge  of  rock ; 
for  there,  for  the  first  time,  they  saw  in  its  full  beauty 
the  suggestive  elegance  of  the  chamois.  Even  that 
cabined  creature  which  feeds  on  the  sugar  and  bread 
of  charity  at  the  Giessbach  Falls  is  a  perfect  incarna- 
tion of  all  that  is  sprightly  and  soft;  and  the  mere 
offer  of  a  piece  of  Gemse  at  a  table  d'hote  stirs  up  a  sort 
of  appetising  romance.  To  the  more  experienced,  it 
suggests  the  suspicion  before  tasting  that  some  kid  has 
died  to  furnish  the  luxury ;  while  after  trial  made  the 
kid  too  often  becomes  an  old  goat,  and  suspicion  becomes 
certainty.  But  in  its  wild  state  the  chamois  is  irresis- 
tible, and  the  glasses  were  never  out  of  use,  watching  his 
graceful  course  as  he  traversed  daintily  the  glacier 
below,  or  stopped  with  head  erect  seeking  intently  and 
painfully  the  origin  of  Gottraux's  alarming  whistle. 
G.  had  directed  the  guide  to  procure  a  rifle  the  day 
before ;  but  unfortunately  that  was  the  day  of  the  tir 
at  Aigle,  and  not  a  rifle  or  a  powder-horn  was  to  be 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE   OLDENHOEN  49 

found  in  all  the  valley.  It  made  no  difference  to 
the  chamois  one  way  or  the  other,  for  he  was  quite  safe 
in  G.'s  hands ;  but  in  descending  they  came  close  upon 
three  more,  penned  up  in  so  narrow  a  cleft  of  the  rock 
that  it  would  have  been  very  difficult  for  even  him  to 
miss  them  all. 

When  the  chamois  had  disappeared  it  was  time  to 
start  again,  and  up  the  shifting  shale  they  ploughed 
stiffly  and  somewhat  wearily.  Did  any  one  ever  reach 
the  top  of  a  mountain,  or  any  other  great  object  of 
desire,  without  coming  upon  it  at  last  unexpectedly? 
It  is  always  a  surprise  in  the  last  few  yards  or  the  last 
few  seconds  as  the  case  may  be ;  and  so  it  was  now. 
Hitherto  they  had  seen  on  the  right  hand  the  smiling 
valleys  of  Vaud,  and  on  the  left,  many  glimpses  of  the 
world-renowned  giants  which  lie  between  the  lake  of 
Than  and  Monte  Rosa ;  but  the  ponderous  mass  of  the 
Oldenhorn  itself  had  shut  out  all  the  south-west  view. 
No  words  can  express  their  amazement  and  delight 
when  this  seemed  suddenly  to  melt  away  with  the  last 
three  steps,  and  they  found  nothing  but  the  telescopic 
atmosphere  on  any  side.  It  would  be  tedious  and  im- 
possible to  tell  what  old  and  new  friends  flashed  out 
from  every  point  of  the  perfect  horizon  :  a  negative  list 
would  be  much  more  simple,  for  the  peaks  that  cannot 
be  seen  from  that  vantage-ground  of  10,290  feet  are 
very  few.  On  their  way  to  the  summit,  the  Combin 
had  been  the  easternmost  of  the  mountains  visible  on 
the   left  hand,  and  had  stood  out  with  such  massive 


50     HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHOKN 

prominence  that  they  had  believed  for  a  time  that  in  it 
they  saw  Mont  Blanc.  A  different  stand-point  so 
entirely  changes  the  character  of  a  mountain,  that 
their  familiar  knowledge  of  Mont  Blanc  from  another 
side  was  held  to  be  no  rule  for  their  present  position. 
But  now  they  were  indeed  undeceived,  when  the  veri- 
table giant  stood  revealed  in  all  that  calm  bewildering 
grandeur  which  its  closer  converse  with  the  heavens 
has  won.  There  is  always  a  something  about  this 
mountain  which  appeals  to  a  subjective  magnifier  in 
the  heart,  and  the  higher  the  observer  rises  the  greater 
the  magnifying  power;  that  is  to  say,  the  mountain 
looks  disproportionately  high  as  compared  with  other 
mountains.  This  is  usually  attributed  to  the  compara- 
tive solitariness  of  the  whole  position;  but  constant 
familiarity  with  the  soaring  outline  seems  to  put  a 
deeper  meaning  into  it  than  this.  At  any  rate,  even 
Monte  Rosa,  never  a  very  striking  mountain  from  the 
distant  north,  is  dwarfed  into  a  thoroughly  secondary 
place  for  spectators  from  the  Oldenhorn,  in  the  presence 
of  its  great  rival. 

There  was  not  a  cloud  in  the  whole  sky,  so  long  as 
the  back  was  turned  on  eastern  France ;  but  over  that 
country  the  white  clouds  lay  fleecily,  their  upper  side 
presenting  the  appearance  of  a  large  army  under 
canvas,  thousands  of  tent-like  cones  rising  up  skyward 
and  clearly  seen  from  above.  Over  no  other  point  of 
the  vast  field  of  view  was  there  any  barrier  between 
earth  and  heaven.     The  mountains,  clothed  from  base 


HOW  WE   MOUNTED   THE   OLDENHOEN  51 

to  summit  in  glacial  dress,  looked  like  some  white-clad 
early  Christian  crowd  at  baptismal  Easter-tide,  raising 
the  clasped  hands  of  prayer  and  adoration ;  with  here 
and  there  one  springing  up  into  the  eager  attitude  of 
praise,  and  seeking  with  aspiring  palms  enveloped  in 
the  bright  garments  of  the  new  birth,  to  grasp  the 
incomprehensible,  to  attain  to  the  infinite.  And  the 
answering  rays  came  down  with  abiding  softness,  and 
played  as  it  were  lovingly  around  the  adoring  head  and 
on  the  hands  of  prayer ;  and  they  sweetly  lighted  up 
the  ascribing  palms  with  divine  phosphorescence.  And 
the  spotless  virgin  in  pure  Cistercian  garb  of  jewelled 
ice  and  snow,  at  whose  voice  when  raised  in  wrath  the 
Wengern  Alp  is  seen  to  tremble,  and  the  rugged  Car- 
melite at  her  side  from  beneath  his  concealing  cowl, 
renewed  evermore  their  worship  and  their  vows ;  and 
the  ministering  Engel-horner  softly  lurked  behind. 
And  nature  unisonant  seemed  to  sing  Te  Deum ;  and 
antiphonal  harmonies  replied,  for  Jacob's  dream  was 
there.  But  yet  from  all  this  loveliness  the  eye 
wandered  continually  to  the  lovely  Sanfleuron.  A 
thousand  feet  below,  it  lay ;  the  fair  bodily  form  of  the 
spirit  of  peace  and  repose,  hymning  heavenward  a  silent 
lullaby  which  soothed  the  weary  climbers  as  it  passed. 

However,  frail  mortality  has  other  senses  than  that 
of  sight,  and  a  certain  unromantic  member  of  its 
animal  economy  is  possessed  of  a  voice,  and  of  power 
to  make  it  heard.  A  lady,  in  writing  of  such  a  situa- 
tion as  the  present,  has  spoken  of  the  rich  sweet  thank- 

E   2 


52  HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE   OLDENHORN 

fulness  in  being  able  to  enjoy,  which  fills  the  eyes  with 
happy  tears  ;  but  the  males  at  least  of  the  party  omitted 
that  ceremony,  and  proceeded  instead  to  the  enjoyment 
of  a  well-seasoned  ivurst.  There  was  barely  room  for 
the  five  to  sit,  and  on  all  sides  except  the  shaly  approach 
the  precipices  fell  sheer  down  ;  nevertheless,  they  made 
a  perfect  dinner,  body  and  soul  enjoying  an  inimitable 
repast.  One  creature  comfort  the  former  found  very 
unexpectedly,  the  keenness  of  the  night's  frost  having 
caught  a  small  patch  of  snow  before  it  had  time  to  slip 
off,  and  pinned  it  there  for  icing  the  half-churned  wine. 
When  the  meal  was  finished,  they  opened  the  cmhe 
and  drew  out  the  collection  of  wooden  labels  on  which 
the  names  of 'all  their  predecessors  were  carved  or 
written.  A.  and  M.  sought  eagerly  for  the  two 
English  ladies  of  whom  they  had  so  often  heard,  and 
at  length  found  them,  one  bearing  a  ducal  surname, 
with  a  Christian  name  now  honoured  by  royalty. 
Some  of  the  ascents  dated  as  far  back  as  the  beginning 
of  the  century,  and  there  were  names  among  them  that 
the  world  has  heard  ;  but,  to  A.  and  M.'s  great  delight, 
no  woman's  name  appeared  except  on  the  one  label. 
G.  at  once  set  to  work  to  carve  a  memorial  on  a  piece 
of  wood  brought  up  for  the  purpose,  and  when  it  was 
finished  they  all  agreed  that  it  was  more  complete  than 
anything  the  Oldenhorn  had  so  far  possessed.  By  this 
time  Gottraux  was  fast  asleep,  and  as  they  kept  an  eye 
upon  him  lest  he  should  roll  off,  it  was  seen  that  he 
was  going  through  some  lively  adventure.     D'E.  was 


HOW  WE   MOUNTED  THE   OLDENHOEN  63 

in  the  act  of  remarking  that  the  dreams  should  be  very 
romantic  on  such  a  couch,  when  he  suddenly  awoke, 
and  parodied  the  romance  by  exclaiming  in  the  husky 
voice  of  returning  consciousness,  '  Le  matelas  est  lien 
dur,  Monsieur  D'Espine!'  When  asked  to  give  an 
account  of  his  dreams,  he  said  that  he  had  been  beat- 
ing an  engineer  for  declaring  that  the  road  from  Gsteig 
into  the  Ormonts,  over  the  Col  de  Pillon,  could  not  be 
made.  This  road  had  long  been  hoped  for  by  the  in- 
habitants of  the  valley,  and  curiously  enough  the 
engineer  was  at  this  moment  prospecting  on  the  Col, 
and  he  told  the  party  in  the  evening  that  he  had 
watched  them  through  his  glass  as  they  rested  on  the 
summit  of  the  Oldenhorn. 

After  two  hours  and  a  half  had  passed  away,  with 
that  ruthless  rapidity  which  marks  the  march  of  moments 
of  delight,  they  sorrowfully  determined  that  it  was  time 
to  start.  They  gazed  on  the  charms  they  now  must 
leave,  with  the  long,  lingering  look  with  which  it  is 
supposed  that  in  an  earlier  stage  of  civilisation  a  lover 
was  wont  to  part  from  his  mistress.  Nor  was  the 
mistress  in  this  case  at  least  unresponsive ;  for  when 
the  heart  yearns  to  some  snow-clad  mountain,  and 
cries  aloud  with  the  silent  eloquence  of  the  eye  to  its 
valleys  and  crags,  each  atom  of  the  mountain  has  its 
voiceless  answer  ready,  and  gives  it  with  abundant 
sympathy.  But  at  length  they  forced  themselves  to 
rise,  and  once  on  their  feet  were  soon  equipped.  The 
descent  of  the  highest  cone  was  a  very  simple  matter, 


54     HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHORN 

for  it  was  only  necessary  to  plant  themselves  every  now 
and  then  afresh,  and  the  moving  shale  carried  them 
down  without  any  effort  beyond  that  by  which  equili- 
brium was  maintained.  This  effort  D'E.  fancied  that 
A.  found  it  difficult  to  make,  so  he  went  to  her  assist- 
ance, and  the  two  came  sliding  down  hand  in  hand, 
preceded  by  a  rattling  avalanche  of  stones.  The  others 
of  the  party  had  reached  the  bottom  of  the  cone,  M. 
going  a  tremendous  pace  with  the  support  of  Gottraux's 
hand,  which  reassured  the  dizziness  she  still  felt,  and  on 
looking  back  up  the  slope  they  were  considerably  struck 
by  the  picturesque  appearance  presented  by  A.  and  D'E. 
From  head  to  foot  A.  was  clothed  in  dove-coloured  grey, 
save  where  a  brown  hat  and  corresponding  ribs  of  colour 
at  the  other  extremity  broke  the  Quaker-like  monotony. 
D'E.,  on  the  contrary,  rejoiced  in  white  trousers  and  a 
flaming  red  shirt  and  a  white  straw  hat,  with  a  new 
botanical  tin  of  the  brightest  possible  green.  Both  of 
them  were  tall  and  slight,  and  in  the  course  of  their 
mutual  efforts  to  save  each  other  from  falling  their 
hands  had  been  gradually  raised  up  high  between  them, 
and  they  looked  like  those  ornamental  dancers  who 
perform  on  china  mugs  and  gaudy  tea-trays. 

There  was  another  reason  for  M.'s  greater  speed, 
which  partook  of  the  nature  of  a  feminine  mystery  and 
was  only  explained  later.  Both  A.  and  M.  were  care- 
fully looped  up,  but  the  sharp-pointed  rocks  which 
cropped  up  here  and  there  knew  how  to  catch  the 
festoons  and  hold  them  impaled.     M.'s  was  an  elderly 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHORN  65 

gown,  and  with  a  finished  grace  it  always  gave  way  on 
these  occasions  and  offered  no  resistance  to  the  rocks ; 
but  A.  was  more  stiffly  clad,  and  her  festoons  struggled 
with  their  captors,  while  polite  D'E.  was  always  ready 
to  stop  and  assist  in  their  release.  So  that  although 
M.  reached  the  foot  of  the  cone  long  before  A.,  she 
reached  it  more  or  less  in  ribbons,  whereas  A.'s  more 
stately  paces  were  encompassed  to  the  end  by  untattered 
habiliments. 

At  length  the  level  of  the  Sanfleuron  was  once 
more  reached,  and  as  they  all  felt  perfectly  fresh  a 
digression  was  made  onto  the  glacier :  their  enjoyment 
of  it  may  be  gathered  from  a  remark  made  in  stepping 
from  it  to  the  rocks  again,  '  I  could  have  walked  there 
for  ever/  The  popular  idea  of  a  glacier  gives  it  a  sur- 
face like  water  frozen  as  it  chops  and  churns  in  some 
narrow  sea,  and  the  cockney  glaciers  of  Grindelwald 
confirm  and  generalise  the  impression;  but  a  more 
smooth  and  level  plain  than  the  Sanfleuron  cannot  well 
be  imagined,  excepting  in  the  Sanetsch  corner,  where 
crevasses  prevail  to  an  alarming  extent. 

If  the  glacier  had  looked  beyond  expression  lovely 
from  the  height  of  the  Oldenhorn,  the  mountain  in  its 
turn  looked  beyond  expression  grand  from  the  surface 
of  the  glacier.  The  whole  sea  of  ice  was  hemmed  in 
by  masses  of  rock  of  most  striking  character,  but  none 
rose  with  such  glorious  abruptness  as  that  which  had 
now  been  made  a  friend  for  life.  The  melancholy 
remnants  of  the  three  fallen  Diablerets  stood  out  with 


56  HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE   OLDENHORN 

an  air  which  told  a  part  of  their  story,  a  story  told  in 
full  detail  by  the  chaos  in  which  the  Lac  Derborence 
has  found  a  home ;  while  the  two  that  are  yet  to  fall 
reared  themselves  to  the  skies  with  a  full  measure  of 
preparatory  pride.  It  had  been  the  ambition  of  A. 
and  M.  to  ascend  these,  and  there  is  certainly  a  strange 
fascination  in  the  idea  of  standing  on  the  summit  of  a 
mountain  ten  thousand  feet  high,  whose  companions  lie 
in  shattered  heaps  in  the  valleys  below,  confidently  ex- 
pecting the  fall  of  the  remnant  that  is  still  left  standing. 
But  the  ascent  to  the  bird's-eye  view  of  the  eboulement 
involves  a  long  cheminee,  and  A.  and  M.  did  not  care 
to  have  their  clothes  torn  off  their  backs ;  while  the  real 
ascent  of  the  Diablerets  was  said  on  that  side  of  the 
mountain  to  present  ^  glacial  difficulties  through  which 
no  local  guide  would  undertake  a  lady ;  so  that  on  the 
whole  they  were  prudently  satisfied  with  the  graceful 
and  more  possible  summit  of  the  Oldenhom. 

The  glacier  only  escapes  beyond  its  rocky  margin 
at  two  points :  the  one  between  the  Oldenhom  and  the 
Diablerets,  where  its  overflow  forms  the  Sexrouge,  a 
glacier  which  some  weeks  before  had  hurled  down  huge 
masses  of  ice  upon  A.  and  M. — those  rash  adventurers 
having  climbed  up  to  its  lowest  point  in  a  dense  mist — 
but  had  hurled  them  with  so  merciful  a  discretion  that 
only  one  small  piece  took  effect;  the  other  outlet  between 
the  Oldenhom  and  the  Sanetsch,  down  which  gap  they 

*  The  ascent  from  the  side  of  Anzeindaz,  including  the  cheminie 
or  pas  de  lustre,  became  very  familiar  to  them  in  later  years. 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHORN  57 

were  now  to  endeavour  to  make  their  way  to  the  chalets 
d'Audon.  They  had  determined  that  the  route  by 
which  they  had  ascended  to  the  level  of  the  glacier  was 
impracticable  for  the  descent,  when  the  whole  giddy 
height  and  the  steep  slopes  of  ice  and  snow  would  lie 
before  their  eyes,  demonstratively  visible  at  every  step 
they  took. 

They  certainly  did  eventually  get  down,  but  to  this 
day  one  or  two  of  them  scarcely  know  how.  Gottraux, 
in  his  anxiety  to  prove  the  way  easy — for  he  had  quite 
come  in  to  the  view  he  had  at  first  opposed — went  down 
thirty  or  forty  yards  of  the  ice  slope  like  lightning,  thus 
tempting  D'E.  also  to  try  a  glissade.  Poor  D'E.,  how- 
ever, got  under  way  before  he  was  ready  for  a  start, 
and  he  shot  down  shapeless,  providentially  taking  a  line 
which  brought  him  within  reach  of  Gottraux's  powerful 
arm.  Had  that  chance  of  safety  failed,  the  inevitable 
boulders  were  ready  for  him  below ;  but  as  it  was  he 
merely  lost  a  little  skin  and  his  eau  de  cerise.  Gottraux 
then  came  back,  and  piloted  M.  down  in  safety,  G. 
undertaking  A.  and  bringing  her  also  down  after 
various  little  accidents.  She  was  sometimes  not  very 
sure-footed,  and  at  the  steeper  points  his  only  plan  was 
to  fix  his  alpenstock  firmly  in  the  ice  a  little  in  advance, 
and  against  this  to  place  his  foot ;  then  A.,  holding  his 
left  hand,  was  to  let  herself  glide  gently  down  till  she 
rested  on  the  upper  side  of  this  foot,  when  she  could 
get  a  good  hold  with  her  own  alpenstock,  and  then  the 
slow   process   could   be    repeated.     But   she   did  not 


58  HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDEKHORN 

always  liit  the  foot  in  sliding  down,  and  on  such 
occasions  her  feet  of  course  slipped  from  under  her,  and 
with  a  wild  shriek  of  '  Oh,  George ! '  she  flung  her  left 
arm  blindly  round  his  neck,  and  the  two  rolled  chaoti- 
cally down  till  one  or  other  caught  at  something.  One 
of  these  rolls  was  alarmingly  long,  for  A.  missed  her 
accustomed  clutch  of  G.'s  shoulder,  and  brought  her 
left  hand,  still  tightly  grasping  her  alpenstock,  heavily 
upon  his  unfortunate  nose,  so  that  he  commenced  the 
roll  in  a  half-stunned  state.  M.  and  Gottraux  were 
not  without  their  tumbles  too,  but  the  others  were  far 
too  much  occupied  to  take  any  notice  of  them. 

At  the  foot  of  the  glacier  they  spent  a  long  time  in 
collecting  the  lovely  flowers  which  have  chosen  that 
inclement  region  for  their  habitation ;  one,  the  fairest 
of  them  all,  la  frele  soManelle^  with  its  delicate  lilac 
fringes,  bursting  through  the  hard  crusted  edges 
formed  by  the  frozen  meltings  of  the  snow  and  ice. 
Each  of  the  five  contrived  to  find  a  better  specimen 
than  the  others  of  the  happily  named  velvet  jpied  de 
lion,  so  prettily  introduced  in  a  German  tale  of  con- 
jugal happiness  restored :  the  arabette,  with  leaves  like 
those  of  the  plants  which  lower  latitudes  call  ice-plants, 
seemed  to  fill  its  proper  place  at  the  edge  of  the  San- 
fleuron;  while  various  ranunculaceas,  the  small  red 
glacial  ranunculus,  the  white  clusters  of  the  anemone 
a  fleurs  de  narcisse,  and  the  large  white  Alpine 
anemone,  rewarded  their  enthusiastic  search.  Then 
the  chalets  d'Audon  were  at  length  reached,  the  only 


HOW  WE  MOUNTED  THE  OLDENHOEN     69 

disappointment  having  been  that  not  one  of  the  mar- 
mots which  abound  in  that  valley  had  made  itself 
visible.  Gottraux  had  no  object  now  in  trying  the 
heads  and  legs  of  the  party,  so  the  path  which  had 
suffered  from  the  eboulement  was  prudently  avoided, 
and  the  better  and  more  beautiful  route  by  the  course 
of  the  Reusch  was  chosen.  They  were  met  by  Madame 
D'E.  with  a  party,  in  great  anxiety  for  her  son's  safety, 
four  hours  from  home,  and  regaled  by  her  with  a  ban- 
quet of  cream  in  a  chalet ;  the  two  parties  then  united, 
and  reached  the  jpension^  with  flags  improvised  and  few 
or  no  signs  of  fatigue,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening, 
the  five  having  thus  made  a  hard  day  of  seventeen 
hours  after  a  harder  night  of  three.  But  even  then, 
and  much  more  now,  they  could  think  only  of  the 
delights  of  the  day,  for  all  its  hardships  were  pleasures 
and  its  dangers  triumphs ;  and  of  the  night  it  may  be 
said,  that  in  the  course  of  time  they  have  come  to  look 
upon  it  as  a  most  amusing  experience. 


60 


HOW   WE  DID  MONT  BLANC  ^ 

The  ascent  of  Mont  Blanc  is  usually  called  a  very 
cockney  aflfair.  Moreover,  it  has  been  talked  about, 
and  written  about,  and  lectured  about,  till  one  might 
suppose  that  every  part  of  the  mountain,  from  the 
Hotel  in  Chamonix  to  the  summit  of  the  Calotte,  was 
as  well  known  to  the  British  public  as  the  hills  which 
stand  about  London.  But  one  member,  at  least,  of  the 
British  public  had  always  found  it  impossible  to  make 
out,  from  any  of  the  numerous  histories  of  ascents, 
what  there  really  was  of  diflBculty,  and  what  of  danger, 
in  reaching  the  highest  point  of  Europe  ;  and  with  the 
view  of  satisfying  himself  on  this  question  he  determined 
upon  trying  to  accomplish  the  task.  The  training 
gone  through  in  preparation  for  the  struggle  amounted 
to  two  days  on  a  sofa  in  Geneva,  with  threatenings  of 
bilious  fever,  and  incessant  attention  to  a  leg  which 
medical  skill  said  might  be  patched  up  sufficiently  for 
ordinary  walking ;  these  being  the  results  of  many  hot, 
fatiguing  days  among  the  lower  mountains,  and  cor- 
responding nights  of  unsuccessful  skirmishing  with  the 
population  of  Continental  beds. 

'  Cornhill  Magaziiie,  June  I860. 


HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC  61 

Call  this  ill-trained  person,  unfit  for  glaciers,  G., 
and  his  companion/  a  young  fellow  of  seventeen,  who 
had  spent  a  fortnight  in  creditable  ice  excursions,  H. 
The  guide  was  a  Zermatt  man,  whom  they  had  taken 
with  them  to  Chamonix,  and  when  P.  P.  are  given  as 
his  initials,  any  connoisseur  of  high  mountains  will 
know  that  a  better  guide  could  not  have  been  found. ^ 
As  a  cheerful  practical  proof  of  the  absence  of  danger 
in  the  ascent,  there  arrived  simultaneously  at  Chamonix 
the  complete  leg  and  foot  of  one  of  the  party  lost  in 
1820,  which  had  been  found  that  afternoon  on  the 
Glacier  des  Boissons,  and  was  exhibited  to  the  new 
arrivals  before  burial. 

It  had  been  intended  to  take  one  porter  from 
Chamonix  as  far  as  the  sleeping-place  on  the  Grands 
Mulets,  to  carry  the  necessary  provisions,  and  another 
to  accompany  the  party  to  the  summit  as  under-guide. 
But  when  they  applied  at  the  bureau  for  a  porter,  the 
chef-guide  proved  to  G.  with  much  politeness,  from  the 
printed  regulations,  that  it  was  impossible  to  attempt 
the  ascent  without  one  guide  and  one  porter  for  each 
monsieur  The  reglement  declares  that  this  number  is 
necessary  for  courses  danger euses.  G.  claimed  exemp- 
tion on  the  ground  that,  as  no  one  could  call  the  Mont 
Blanc  a  dangerous  course,  the  rule  must  have  been 
made  for  the  Breven  or  the  Mauvais  Pas.  But  when 
politeness  and   reason  have  failed  with  a  Frenchman, 

'  Captain  Gaskell,  late  9th  Lancers. 
2  This  was  Peter  Perm. 


62  HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC 

chaff  is  scarcely  likely  to  succeed,  and  the  chef  merely 
bowed  stiffly,  and  remarked  that  if  monsieur  would 
pardon  him,  the  Mont  Blanc  was  the  most  dangerous  of 
the  many  courses  dangereuses  of  the  reglement,  and  he 
could  not  possibly  supply  less  than  three  men  to  assist 
P.P. 

P.  P.  being  a  Swiss,  and  therefore  impatient  of 
interference  with  the  liberty  of  mankind,  agreed  with 
the  Herrs  that  under  no  circumstances  would  they 
submit,  after  he  had  vainly  suggested  that  as  one  of  the 
members  of  the  Alpine  Club  had  the  same  name  as  G., 
the  difficulty  might  be  evaded,  for  members  of  that  Club 
can  take  what  number  of  guides  they  choose.  When 
he  had  listened  to  a  homily  on  the  immorality  of  his 
suggestion,  he  made  off  into  the  village,  and  by  good 
fortune  found  a  Courmayeur  man,  who  was  on  the  point 
of  returning  home.  This  man  was  of  course  not  bound 
by  the  laws  of  the  place  respecting  guides  and  porters 
for  Mont  Blanc,  and  he  agreed  to  make  a  fourth  to  the 
summit,  and  to  cany  his  share  of  food  and  night- 
clothing  to  the  Grands  Mulets.  But  the  chef-guide 
heard  of  the  arrangement  in  some  roundabout  way,  and 
illegally  captured  and  incarcerated  the  Courmayeur 
man,  and  so  reduced  the  party  to  their  elements  again. 
Fortune  did  not  therefore  cease  to  smile  upon  their 
efforts ;  for  P.  P.  discovered  a  master-shoemaker,  who 
was  anxious  to  make  the  ascent,  and  would  be  only  too 
glad  to  accompany  the  party  pour  son  plaisir,  and  carry 
half  the  things.     Of  course  he  was  to  be  paid  something. 


HOW  WE   DID  MONT  BLANC 


63 


privately,  but  for  all  public  purposes  he  was  a  gentle- 
man at  large,  and  the  chef-guide  dared  not  meddle  with 
him.  And  thus  they  were  at  length  complete,  one 
guide,  two  Herrs,  and  one  master-shoemaker. 

The  amount  of  food  to  be  carried  may  be  imagined 
from  the  following  copy  of  the  bill : — 


Provisions:  Mont  Blanc 


Fr. 

ct. 

Fr. 

Ct. 

The      . 

.     5 

0 

Brought  forward 

43 

50 

Cafe     . 

.     5 

0 

Fromage 

2 

0 

Sucre   . 

.     3 

0 

Pruneaux 

3 

0 

Viande  de  bcBuf 

.     5 

0 

1  bile.  Cognac      . 

4 

50 

Jambon 

.     6 

0 

1  flacon  Cognac   . 

4 

0 

1  roti  de  veau 

.     6 

0 

7  biles,  vin  ord.    . 

7 

0 

2  gros  poulets 

.  10 

0 

1  bougie  et  1  chandelle 

1 

50 

Sel  et  poivre 

.     0 

50 

Verres  perdus 

2 

0 

12  ceufs 

.     3 

0 

Gros  et  pt.  pain    . 

3 

0 

Carried  forward       43    50 


70    50 


Ferdinand  Eisenkraemer,  of  the  Hotel  Eoyal,  possesses, 
for  three  months  in  the  year,  a  secretary,  who  manages 
all  these  matters.  The  guide  of  the  party  meditating 
an  ascent  goes  to  the  bureau  of  this  gentleman,  and 
orders  provisions  for  Mont  Blanc  for  so  many  persons, 
and  the  secretary  puts  up  what  he  thinks  proper.  It  is 
evident,  also,  that  he  charges  what  he  thinks  proper. 
The  present  secretary  is  a  schoolmaster,  whose  pupils 
are  handed  over  to  his  wife  for  the  Chamonix  season ; 
let  us  hope  that  she  inculcates  those  lessons  of  modera- 
tion and  honesty  which  her  husband  is  meanwhile 
putting  in  practice.     He  is  a  man  of  friendly  manner, 


64  HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC 

and  of  much  imagination,  which  last  has  developed 
itself  in  a  new  table  of  capacities,  k  propos  to  his 
arithmetical  work  with  his  pupils  in  the  dull  season. 
Two  Swiss,  he  says  in  his  heart,  one  Frank;  four 
Franks,  one  Boule.  He  therefore  loves  the  English 
much,  as  a  people  of  stomach  and  of  purse, — nay,  he 
not  only  loves,  he  worships  the  golden  image.  He 
believes,  or  professes  to  believe,  that  they  can  eat  any 
amount  of  food  when  they  make  a  course,  and  pay  any 
amount  of  money  for  it  when  they  return.  The  fervour 
with  which  he  squeezes  an  English  hand  is  but  a  faint 
shadowing  forth  of  the  operation  he  performs  upon  the 
purse.  And  yet  there  are  immense  charms  in  the 
Hotel  Royal  at  Chamonix,  in  the  excellence  and  negligee 
of  its  table-d'hote,  the  comfort  of  its  beds,  the  picturesque 
undulations  of  its  billiard-table,  and  the  sublime  glories 
of  its  mountain  views. 

The  shoemaker  was  not  promising,  as  far  as  per- 
sonal appearance  went.  He  was  sickly  and  small,  and 
had  a  large  white  nose,  through  which  he  snuffled 
when  he  was  in  pluck,  and  whined  when  he  wasn't. 
His  name,  he  said,  was  Friedrich  Zimmerman,  of  Thun; 
on  which  G.  informed  him  that,  as  a  testimony  to  his 
pluck  in  thus  attempting  the  ascent,  he  should  be 
called,  not  Zimmerman,  but  Immer-mann — which 
seemed  to  delight  him  much  and  add  something  to  his 
stature  and  his  step.  He  began  at  once  to  explain 
what  must  be  done,  on  their  return,  to  obtain  the  certi- 
ficate of  the  chef-guide,  which  that  exalted  personage 


HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC  66 

gives — for  five  francs — to  all  who  make  the  ascent. 
And  when  he  was  told  that  it  would  be  time  enough  to 
talk  about  that  when  the  ascent  was  made,  he  said 
proudly  that  he  had  already  made  a  promenade  to  the 
Breven  last  year  (5000  feet  above  Chamonix)  without 
much  fatigue,  and  had  once  reached  St.  Bernard  in  two 
days. 

The  seven  bottles  of  vin  ordinaire  were  in  reality 
only  six,  and  of  these  P.  P.  had  decanted  four  into  a 
waterproof  bag,  which  in  its  turn  was  carried  in  a 
waterproof  knapsack ;  as  the  verres  perdus  of  the  bill 
represent  the  missing  fabric  of  the  remaining  two,  it 
would  seem  that  empty  bottles  are  a  valuable  property 
in  France.  Before  they  had  gone  far,  P.  P.'s  back  dis- 
covered that  neither  bag  nor  knapsack  was  wine-proof, 
and  as  Zimmerman  began  to  find  himself  very  hot,  Gr. 
took  charge  of  the  coats  of  both.  This  slight  relief  was 
not  of  much  use  to  the  shoemaker  when  they  reached 
the  steep  zigzags  of  the  forest,  and  he  walked  last,  and 
cried  constantly,  *  doucement !  doucement ! '  causing 
P.  P.  to  become  vocal  with  a  song  of  two  lines,  re- 
peated ad  libitum — 

Langsam  voran !  langsam  voran ! 

Damit  der  letzte  Mann  nachkommen  kann !  ^ 

*  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  shoemaker  did  not  know  the  Folk- 
song of  which  this  is  possibly  a  corruption,  for  the  comparison  with 
the  Austrian  Landsturm  would  not  have  pleased  him  : — 
'  Nur  immer  langsam  voran  !  langsam  voran  ! 
Dass  der  Oestreicher  Landsturm  nachkommen  kann; 
Die  Oestreicher  haben  eine  Schanz'  erbaut 
Aus  lauter  Speck  und  Sauerkraut.' 

F 


66  HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC 

varied  with  prose  declarations  that  a  good  guide's 
motto  should  always  be,  langsam,  aher  immer.  Still 
the  shoemaker  fell  more  and  more  behind,  and  it  be- 
came evident  that  no  amount  of  langsam  would  ensure 
the  tmchhoTrvnien :  so  a  halt  was  called,  and  the  bundle 
of  rug  and  wraps  was  transferred  to  G.'s  back. 

But  all  was  of  no  avail,  and  within  an  hour  and  a 
quarter  of  Chamonix  he  came  to  a  total  stand.  The 
knapsack  of  provisions  was  taken  from  him,  and  all  that 
was  his  was  eliminated  from  the  bundle  of  wraps  and 
thrown  on  to  the  zigzag  way,  and  then  he  was  igno- 
miniously  turned  out  of  the  party,  and  told  that  neither 
Zimmerman  nor  Immer-mann  should  henceforth  be  his 
name,  but,  instead,  Nimmer-mann.  P.  P.  said  that  a 
small  auberge  was  being  built  higher  up,  and  it  might 
be  possible  to  find  a  porter  there,  so  he  and  G.  made  a 
division  of  the  baggage,  H.  being  by  general  consent 
too  young  for  such  work,  and  they  once  more  started 
in  hope. 

At  the  Pierre  Pointue  a  new  and  cheap  and  excel- 
lent little  auberge  was  found,  kept  by  Sylvain  Couttet, 
and  attended  to  by  his  pleasant  wife.  In  future 
ascents,  it  will  be  a  good  plan  to  purchase  all  pro- 
visions here,  and  so  avoid  the  extortions  of  Chamonix, 
and  save  the  porters  some  of  their  toil.  Sylvain  was 
speedily  persuaded  to  carry  half  the  baggage  to  the 
Grands  Mulets,  and  off  they  went  across  the  rocks  in 
high  spirits,  Nimmer-mann  coming  on  still  behind, 
with  snuffling  declarations  that  he  would  at  least  cross 


HOW  WE   DID  MONT  BLANC  67 

the  glacier,  and  even  bursting  forth  into  a  nasal  song 
in  proof  of  his  restored  pluck.  But  he  was  sternly 
bidden  to  cease — it  was  not  for  him,  of  all  men,  to  dare 
to  sing ;  and,  as  for  the  glacier,  he  should  not  put  one 
foot  upon  it,  with  all  those  horrible  crevasses.  And 
so  he  was  half  bullied,  half  frightened,  into  returning 
with  a  party  whom  they  found  at  the  Pierre  a  I'Echelle, 
one  of  whom  did  his  best  to  turn  H.  back  because  ot 
the  lightness  of  his  clothing,^  which  had  already  stood 
the  blustering  cold  of  a  storm  on  Monte  Rosa ;  and 
another,  a  most  agreeable  Frenchman,  showered  evil 
omens  on  the  expedition  by  persisting  in  calling  P.  P. 
*  Benin,'  and  correcting  himself  each  time  with  a  shudder, 
and  Ah  !  ce  pauvre  Benin,  il  est  mort !  ^  When  P.  P. 
heard  that  this  gentleman  was  a  member  of  the  Alpine 
club,  he  added  the  word  Suisse  with  much  scorn ;  but 
his  scorn  became  intense  respect  when  he  was  told  how 
worthily  he  had  been  elected  into  the  English  club. 
Good  guides  are  too  much  in  the  way  of  affecting  to 

'  This  gentleman  was  afterwards  proved,  on  unmistakable  in- 
ternal evidence,  to  be  the  author  of  several  interesting  papers  on 
glacier  excursions.  In  one  of  these  he  has  described  his  outfit  for 
Mont  Blanc,  which  he  believes  cannot  be  improved  upon:— 'A 
merino";  waistcoat,  then  two  light  flannel  shirts,  chamois-leather 
waistcoat,  and  over  these  a  double-breasted  cloth  waistcoat,  a  light 
kind  of  "  lounging-coat,"  and  light  over-coat.  For  the  nether 
garments,  a  pair  of  stout  trowsers,  and  two  pairs  of  drawers.'  The 
lightness  of  H.'s  clothing  might  well  surprise  him.  G.,  too,  had 
only  an  old  pair  of  trowsers,  cut  short  at  the  knee,  made  of  very 
thin  flannel  worn  thinner. 

-  Lost  shortly  before  in  an  avalanche  on  the  Haut  de  Cry,  in  the 
spring  of  1864. 

F  2 


68  HOW  WE  DID  MONTIbLANC 

despise  this  Swiss  club.  Thus  a  famous  guide  refused 
to  accompany  one  of  its  officers,  because,  as  he  said,  he 
found  the  English  club  climbed  better  and  paid  better. 
Another  guide  tells  that  when  his  Herrs  were  dining 
in  a  certain  hotel,  members  of  the  Swiss  club  sent  a 
message  from  another  hotel  in  the  town,  proposing 
fraternisation.  He  answered  that  his  HeiTs  were  at 
dinner,  and  must  not  be  disturbed;  he  would  see  about 
it  after  dinner.  Meanwhile  he  paid  a  visit  of  inspec- 
tion, and  found  that  the  Swiss  gentlemen  had  umbrellas 
with  spikes,  paper  pantofles,  and  black  coats  and  trow- 
sers  ;  so  he  burked  the  message  entirely. 

Certain  young  malcontents  of  the  canton  Valais 
have  conceived  a  disapproval  of  the  principles  of  this 
club,  and  propose  to  form  a  rival  society.  They  are  to 
perform  real  feats,  as  they  say,  in  the  way  of  ascents, 
and,  to  shew  their  contempt  for  the  pretensions  of 
other  clubs,  are  to  call  themselves  the  Order  of  the 
Broomstick,  meaning  the  alpenstock,  and  their  presi- 
dent the  Grand  Ramoneur.  It  might  be  suggested  to 
them  that  if  they  would  carry  brooms  also,  as  a  part  of 
the  paraphernalia  of  the  order,  they  might  do  some- 
thing towards  cleaning  their  native  Valais;  and  then 
the  travelling  world  would  heartily  wish  them  the 
success  which  attended  an  ancient  hero  in  a  similar 
labour. 

The  most  interesting  part  of  the  whole  ascent  now 
commenced,  across  the  shattered  ice-fall  of  the  Glacier 
des  Boissons,  and  up  the  ice  and  snow  to  the  Grands 


HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC  69 

Mulets — a  collection  of  rocks  in  the  midst  of  the  higher 
glaciers.  A  few  minutes  of  jumping  across  crevasses, 
and  windiog  along  ice-bridges  and  up  '  vertical  preci- 
pices '  of  the  same  material,  sufficed  to  shew  that  the 
danger  here  was  simply  nothing,  as  far  as  the  fall  of  a 
man  was  concerned,  unless  he  was  very  determinedly 
bent  upon  falling ;  but  from  P.  P.'s  vite !  when  the 
party  passed  the  base  of  any  of  the  overhanging 
pyramids  of  ice,  it  seemed  that  there  was  more  room 
for  a  mischance  there.  Indeed,  a  very  competent 
authority  has  laid  it  down  as  a  law  of  nature — or,  at 
least,  of  the  more  adventurous  members  of  the  English 
Alpine  Club — that  the  only  danger  in  mountain  climb- 
ing is  from  avalanches  and  falling  stones  and  ice ;  for 
the  guides  have  too  strong  an  affection  for  their  own 
necks — or,  shall  we  say,  for  their  wives  and  little  chil- 
dren— to  put  themselves  in  positions  beyond  their  skill. 
Perhaps  the  most  striking  part  of  a  tyro's  first  ex- 
tensive glacier  lesson  is  the  ease  with  which  difficulties 
are  circumvented,  and  the  excellent  foot-hold  afforded 
by  glacier  ice.  Nor  is  anything  more  instructive  and 
assuring  than  the  first  fall.  As  with  a  young  horse  at 
an  early  fence,  so  with  young  climbers  on  their  first 
glacier,  a  fall  is  an  excellent  thing.  It  teaches  a  man 
the  wonderful  use  of  the  rope,  and  gives  him  thereby 
much  confidence ;  and  if,  like  the  young  horse,  he  is 
careless,  which  is  not  very  probable,  it  teaches  him  also 
to  look  to  his  feet.  He  goes  crashing  down,  with  much 
clattering  of  icicles  and  the  rattle  of  a  truant  alpen- 


70  HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC 

stock  or  axe,  and  has  about  time  to  conceive  the  idea 
that  he  is  gone  for  ever,  when  a  sudden  and  unpleasant 
strain  upon  his  waist  pulls  him  up  short ;  he  hangs  for 
a  few  moments  all  ways,  like  a  wounded  rook  in  a  tree, 
till  he  is  hauled  up  by  his  neighbours  on  the  rope, 
regardless  alike  of  the  projecting  keenness  of  ice-points 
and  of  the  due  precedence  of  head  and  feet. 

When  our  friends  had  been  an  hour  or  so  on  the 
ice,  they  heard  the  cannon  of  Chamonix  announcing  the 
arrival  at  the  Grands  Mulets  of  a  party  which  had  left 
the  other  hotel  an  hour  before  them ;  and  though  the 
prolonged  iniquities  of  the  wretched  Nimmer-mann 
had  so  much  delayed  them,  they  found  on  arriving  that 
they  had  gained  on  the  others.  The  great  Murray  says 
that  the  hut  on  the  oasis  of  rocks  is  10,000  feet  above 
the  sea ;  and,  though  the  verbal  inspiration  of  a  guide- 
book is  the  last  theory  a  traveller  is  likely  to  take  up, 
there  seems  to  be  no  particular  reason  for  doubting  this 
measurement.  But  when  it  is  added  that '  the  excite- 
ment of  sleeping  out  on  the  mountain  is  part  of  the 
interest  of  the  adventure,'  the  most  diluted  theory  of 
inspiration  is  too  strong.  There  are  few  places  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  more  abominable  than  that  little  hut 
and  its  environs.'  When  the  present  party  reached  it, 
they  found  two  Englishmen  already  established  there, 
with  more  than  the  Chamonix  allowance,  two  guides, 
namely,  and  three  porters ;  and  three  other  porters  had 
accompanied  them  to  the  Grands  Mulets,  and  returned 
'  This  was  of  course  the  old  hut  of  over  thirty  years  ago. 


HOW  WE   DID   MONT  BLANC  71 

to  Chamonix.  The  Englishmen  had  finished  their  meal, 
and  were  preparing  for  ecarte — amiably  converted  into 
whist — on  the  stones  outside;  but  the  hut  was  pervaded 
by  guides  and  porters  in  every  stage  of  unpleasantness. 
There  were  wet  boots  and  damp  men  smoking  before 
the  little  stove,  the  men  lying  about  uncouthly  and  un- 
courteously,  doing  their  unpolished  best  to  ignore  the 
new  arrivals,  who  were  infringing  every  golden  rule  of 
Chamonix.  No  ascent  had  been  this  year  made  by  the 
Grands  Mulets,  but  there  had  been  various  attempts, 
and  the  disappointed  travellers  had  left  the  debris  of 
their  meals  to  become  unpleasant  in  every  corner  of  the 
hut.  Fourteen  feet  by  seven  is  its  size,  and  although 
its  foulness  cannot  well  be  imagined,  it  may  be  more 
easily  imagined  than  described.  It  was  not  much  satis- 
faction to  hear  that  Couttet  had  undertaken  to  build  a 
better  hut  the  next  week,  and  that  120  guides  and 
porters  had  promised  to  carry  each  one  plank  in  solemn 
single  file,  a  procession  which  would  drain  half  Switzer- 
land of  rascality.^  The  new  hut  was  to  have  two  beds, 
and  the  old  one  was  to  be  left  for  the  use  of  guides  and 
porters  only. 

Tea  is  a  beverage  most  refreshing  on  the  mountains, 
and  tea  had  been  looked  forward  to  with  much  eager- 
ness. But  the  opposition  guides  had  possessed  them- 
selves of  the  only  pan,  and  had  commenced  to  make 
soup  therein ;  soup,  which,  even  in  its  beginning,  gave 

*  Not  that  this  present  writer  believes,  with  so  many  of   his 
countrymen,  that  Mont  Blanc  is  in  Switzerland. 


72  HOW  WE   DID   MONT  BLANC 

fortli  odours  of  a  compound  vileness  that  suggested 
what  its  maturer  moments  would  be.  As  the  time 
passed  on — it  was  now  five  o'clock,  and  they  had  eaten 
nothing  to  speak  of  since  an  early  breakfast — '  Is  the 
soup  ready  ? '  was  constantly  demanded  from  without, 
and  '  No '  as  constantly  answered  from  within ;  not 
that  the  Herrs  wanted  the  soup,  but  they  did  want  the 
pan.  Those  five  men  must  have  denied  themselves 
their  soup  for  a  good  hour,  that  they  might  enjoy  the 
thirst  of  the  wretches  who  had  dared  to  come  on 
Chamonix  ground  without  a  pack  of  Chamonix  guides. 
And  when  the  soup  was  made  and  swallowed,  the  snow 
was  still  to  be  dug  for  making  the  tea,  and  it  seemed 
to  be  as  obstinately  slow  in  melting  as  the  soup  had 
been  in  making. 

Meantime  P.  P.  took  an  opportunity  of  representing 
to  his  Herrs  that  if  there  should  arrive  anything,  three 
was  not  a  good  number.  An  injured  man  could  not  be 
left  alone,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  would  not  be  well 
for  one  to  go  alone  for  help  ;  so  he  strongly  advised 
that,  if  possible,  Couttet  should  be  retained  for  the 
ascent.  Now  Couttet  at  the  Grands  Mulets  was  a  man 
of  higher  price  than  Couttet  under  competition  pressure, 
and  so  it  came  to  pass  that  a  long  time  was  spent  in 
making  francs  mean  half  francs,  and  then  it  was  time 
for  bed.  The  Chamonix  men  kept  the  places  near  the 
fire  for  their  Herrs,  and  for  two  of  themselves — the 
guides  to  wit ;  then  the  other  Herrs  reposed  themselves, 
and  then  the   remaining   five ;    every  one,  of  course, 


HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC  73 

lying  on  the  floor.  But  when  the  Herrs  were  settling 
down  to  dream  of  sleep,  the  guides,  with  one  accord, 
got  up  to  eat  and  drink  and  make  a  noise;  and  the 
clatter  of  bottles,  and  pots,  and  tongues,  and  the 
undulations  of  the  floor  on  which  the  Herrs  lay,  as 
the  heavy  feet  tramped  up  and  down  between  the  stove 
and  the  provision-shelf,  to  say  nothing  of  more  serious 
results  when  the  feet  were  careless  as  well  as  heavy, 
banished  all  idea  of  sleep.  Moreover,  the  damp  and 
evil  odour  of  the  floor  came  reeking  through  the  rug, 
and  added  a  yet  viler  group  to  the  melange  of  vile 
smells  ;  while  all  the  angular  contents  of  the  knapsacks 
rose  to  the  upper  side,  and  tested  the  hardness  of  the 
heads  which  lay  thereon.  And  when  the  hunger  of  the 
guides  was  appeased,  and  their  tongues  became  more 
still,  and  the  candle  was  blown  out,  and  peace  by 
comparison  seemed  near  at  hand,  an  evil  worse  than  all 
rose  into  being.  Seven  rough  men,  and  one  guilty 
Herr,  sleeping,  after  a  heavy  supper,  with  their  heads 
lower  than  their  bodies,  and  their  mouths  open,  pro- 
duced a  variety  and  an  amount  of  noise  utterly  incon- 
ceivable. For  some  time  G.  tapped  sharply  on  the 
floor  with  his  heel  at  each  crisis,  and  a  prompt  responsive 
thud  told  that  a  Chamonix  man  had  interrupted  his 
own  snoring,  and  was  taking  it  out  of  P.  P.'s  back, 
P.  P.  being  a  noted  performer  in  that  line ;  but  nothing 
produced  any  permanent  improvement,  and  G.  and  the 
unsuccessful  smiter  got  up,  and  spent  the  remainder  of 
the  night  in  the  open  air. 


74  HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC 

The  tender-hearted  moon  was  lavish  of  her  purest 
splendours  to  reconcile  them  to  the  cold,  and  the  ice 
and  snow  thundered  forth  their  most  majestic  harmonies, 
as  they  poured  in  white  and  sinuous  bands  down 
distant  precipices  of  rock.  The  very  vacuum  was 
moved  which  years  of  the  Chamonix  tariff  had  created 
in  the  guide's  breast,  and  he  grunted  his  unfeigned 
assent,  between  prolonged  whiffs  of  tobacco-smoke,  to 
the  proposition  that,  even  if  they  saw  nothing  from  the 
summit,  the  weird  waste  and  weird  crashes  of  ice  and 
snow  would  amply  repay  their  toil.  As  a  rule,  however, 
it  is  not  fair  to  draw  upon  a  guide  for  sentiment,  as 
that  commodity  is  not  in  the  bond,  and  the  chef-guide 
has  no  tariff  price  for  it. 

At  a  quarter  to  one  they  ventured  to  return  to  the 
hut,  to  rouse  the  various  sources  of  sound  into  activity 
of  a  more  useful  kind ;  and  the  fire  in  the  stove  was 
easily  restored  to  sufficient  vigour  to  melt  a  fresh 
allowance  of  snow,  and  produce  a  decoction  of  tea. 
The  five  Chamonix  men,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
departed  three,  had  brought,  at  their  Herrs'  expense, 
abundant  food  for  holding  the  Grands  Mulets  for  many 
days,  and  they  now  suggested  to  the  owners  of  this 
extensive  larder  that  it  might  be  better  to  eat  something. 
The  other  party  also  proceeded  to  make  a  selection 
from  their  more  limited,  yet  most  magnificent  store, 
but  the  vile  air  of  the  hut  backed  up  P.  P.'s  cautious 
nur  ein  wenig  only  too  decidedly.  Then  came  the 
dressing  for  the  ascent.     P.  P.  possessed  himself  of  his 


HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC  75 

Herrs'  boots,  and  ran  melted  candle  onto  every  part  of 
them,  especially  about  the  laces  and  the  part  by  which 
boots  are  pulled  on.  Woollen  helmets  and  magnified 
babies'  gloves  completed  their  preparation,  Except  that 
G.  was  persuaded  by  P.  P.  to  put  on  a  thin  Inverness 
cape,  with  the  sleeves  tied  behind,  and  H.  assumed  a 
thicker  scarf.  The  getting-up  of  the  other  party  by 
their  guides  and  porters  was  a  sight  to  see,  and  P.  P. 
sniffed  a  heterodox  scorn  in  rare  intervals  of  hard-boiled 
eggs.  A  Herr  was  caught,  and  extended  on  his  back 
on  the  bench  near  the  fire,  with  naked  feet.  Eound 
each  foot  paper  was  then  wrapped,  made  soft  and 
binding  with  much  candle,  the  head  guide  going 
through  all  the  graces  of  a  young  hospital  dresser  who 
thinks  he  has  a  turn  that  way.  Then,  with  much 
ceremony,  the  stockings  were  put  on,  and  another 
layer  of  grease  run  in,  produced  by  the  application  of 
candle-ends  to  the  surface  of  the  opportune  stove.  Then 
came  the  boots,  stifi"  and  white  already  with  over-night 
grease,  and  coated  now  afresh.  Over  all,  a  pair  of  long 
brown  cloth  leggings,  tied  at  top  with  gay  red  garters, 
with  bows  and  flying  ends.  When  all  this  was  done, 
and  the  Herr  was  turned  off  the  bench,  he  not  un- 
naturally remarked  that  it  was  as  well  he  knew  from 
previous  knowledge  which  were  his  feet,  for  he  had  no 
present  sensation  to  guide  him  in  appropriating  a  pair. 
These  ceremonies  occupied  a  considerable  time,  for 
the  guides  and  porters  seemed  to  think  it  right  that 
each  should  do  something,  and  it  required  a  good  deal 


76  HOW  WE   DID  MONT  BLANC 

of  lengthy  manoeuvring  and  stage  action  to  bring  all 
five  to  bear  upon  one  pair  of  feet.  And  when  the  feet 
were  finished,  long  after  the  patience  of  the  other 
party,  the  head  of  the  Chamonix  men  suggested  to  his 
accomplices,  dubiously — like  a  man  in  a  play — that 
they  might,  perhaps,  eat  a  little  of  something :  an 
operation  which  lasted  a  good  half-hour,  and  put  out  of 
sight  much  calf,  and  a  family  of  cocks  and  hens.  De 
Saussure  was  still  more  unfortunate,  for  his  eighteen 
guides  kept  him  till  half-past  six,  quarrelling  about  the 
adjustment  of  the  baggage,  each  fearing  lest  an  extra 
half-pound  should  make  him  the  victim  of  a  weak 
snow-bridge. 

P.  P.  now  informed  his  Herrs  that  the  other  guides 
had  proposed  that  the  two  parties  should  start  together 
and  each  cut  half  the  steps,  to  which  he  had  agreed  ; 
so  all  the  eleven,  Herrs  and  guides  and  porters, 
scrambled  down  from  the  hut  and  bade  farewell  to  the 
rock  until  their  return  to  the  Grands  Mulets  after 
eleven  hours  of  ice  and  snow.  The  first  cord  held  the 
party  of  seven;  a  guide  at  the  head,  then  a  Herr, 
then  another  guide,  then  the  other  Herr,  and  the 
three  porters  brought  up  the  rear  in  a  body.  P.  P. 
of  course  headed  his  own  rope,  with  Couttet  at  the 
other  end  and  the  Herrs  in  the  middle.  It  was  curious 
to  see  the  antics  of  the  chief  of  the  Chamonix  guides. 
Taking  his  axe,  stock  downwards,  between  his  finger 
and  thumb,  he  pranced  carefully  off  the  rock  and 
delicately  felt  and  probed  the  snow,  making  a  step  in 


HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC  77 

advance  with  the  air  of  a  man  ready  to  do  and  die,  but 
determined  to  do  and  die  with  science.  Whether  he 
impressed  his  own  people,  did  not  appear;  but  the 
party  behind  scoffed  and  moved  onwards,  and  then  he 
theatrically  made  up  his  mind  that  it  was  safe  to  pro- 
ceed. The  snow  was  in  perfect  order,  crisp  and  smooth, 
and  requiring  a  considerable  stamp  in  the  steeper  parts 
before  impression  sufficient  for  a  foot-hold  could  be 
made.  As  this  was  the  first  ascent  of  the  year  by  the 
Grands  Mulets,  the  only  previous  ascent  having  been 
made  from  the  other  side,  the  swelling  slopes  lay 
rounded  off  in  virgin  purity,  and  shone  and  glittered 
in  the  strong  moonlight  with  all  the  firm  fulness  of 
nine  unbroken  months  of  incessant  cold.  And  when 
the  sun  rose  behind  the  Aiguille  de  Charmoz,  convert- 
ing countless  peaks  into  Aiguilles  Rouges,  the  exuberant 
domes  of  snow  put  on  that  satin  sheen  which  underlies 
the  bark  of  silver  birch. 

The  effect  of  the  winter  had  been  very  great  upon 
that  part  of  the  mountain  which  lies  between  the 
Grands  Mulets  and  the  Grand  Plateau ;  and  when  the 
Herrs  of  the  smaller  party  found  that  the  guides  must 
discover  a  fresh  path  among  new  crevasses,  and  give 
up  the  line  they  had  been  accustomed  to  take,  they 
forgot  to  feel  like  cockneys  tramping  on  a  treadmill, 
and  the  ascent  assumed  the  charms  of  experiment  and 
novelty.  Some  time  before  arriving  at  the  Plateau, 
and  before  one  step  had  been  cut,  the  Chamonix  party 
dropped  behind,  and  P.  P.  led;  and  as  they  never  came 


78  HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC 

to  the  front  again,  he  had  to  cut  every  step  of  the  whole 
ascent. 

On  the  Grand  Plateau,  where  for  a  mile  or  two  the 
snow  is  almost  level,  the  four  held  a  serious  discussion, 
the  others  being  out  of  sight  in  the  rear ;  at  least  P.  P. 
and  Couttet  discussed,  and  the  Herrs  sat  on  the  snow, 
and  drank  cold  tea  and  listened.  There  was  a  choice 
of  routes;  and  the  day  was  so  exquisitely  clear  and 
still,  that  diflSculties  arising  from  wind  and  cloud  need 
not  be  considered,  and  the  routes  could  be  judged  on 
their  merits  alone. 

The  three  points  of  attack  lay  in  front,  spread  out 
like  a  fan  round  the  upper  end  of  the  Plateau.  On  the 
left,  the  ascent  to  the  Corridor ;  impossible,  from  its 
long  steepness,  to  the  ignorant  eye,  and  almost  equally 
impossible  to  the  experienced  eyes  of  P.  P.  and  Couttet, 
from  the  state  of  the  crevasses  at  its  foot,  which  seemed 
in  the  distance  to  be  more  than  usually  unpropitious. 
Moreover,  it  was  the  longest  of  the  routes  by  an  hour 
and  a  half.  To  the  right  was  the  base  of  the  Dome  du 
Gout^,  and  if  only  the  overhanging  glacier  would  be 
merciful,  that  was  a  most  recommendable  route.  But 
P.  P.  argued  that  it  was  very  possible  that  when  that 
little  diflBculty  had  been  got  through,  and  they  arrived 
at  the  Bosse  du  Dromadaire,  they  might  find  the  whole 
length  of  the  final  arete  mere  blue  ice,  and  that  would 
cost  immense  labour  and  much  time.  Finally,  between 
the  two,  lay  the  Ancien  Passage.  It  looked  smooth  and 
pleasant  enough,  and  it  was  a  short  cut  to  the  top,  which 


HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC  79 

about  that  time  was  certainly  a  consideration.  But  the 
Ancien  Passage  has  a  history,  and  is  a  passage  for  some- 
thing else  besides  men.  Here  Dr.  Hamel's  guides 
were  lost  in  an  avalanche  in  1820 ;  and  for  the  last 
three  years  thermometers  and  lanterns  and  scalps  and 
limbs  have  been  coming  out  from  the  glacier  miles  and 
miles  below,  and  reminding  the  valley  of  Chamonix  of 
the  terrors  of  the  heights  above.  So  when  Couttet 
argued  that  the  day  was  most  still  and  fine,  and  the 
snow  in  a  better  state  than  he  had  ever  seen  it ;  and 
when  he  declared  that  he  would  guarantee  that  no 
avalanche  would  sweep  the  Ancien  Passage  that  morn- 
ing; the  Herrs  called  to  mind  the  shrunk  leg  and 
contorted  foot  they  had  seen  two  days  before,  lying 
swathed  in  the  boughs  of  trees  at  the  wooden  cross  in 
Chamonix,  and  they  heartily  ratified  P.  P.'s  determina- 
tion to  have  nothing  to  do  with  that  route. 

By  this  time  the  other  party  had  come  up,  and  their 
guides  were  wholly  in  favour  of  the  Corridor ;  so  while 
they  made  their  halt,  P.  P.  led  on  towards  that  side  ot 
the  amphitheatre.  Couttet  renewed  his  arguments  for 
the  Ancien  Passage  as  soon  as  they  were  out  of  hearing 
of  the  Chamonix  men,  saying  that  he  was  sure  they 
meant  to  try  it,  and  so  reach  the  top  first.  But  he 
prevailed  nothing,  and  P.  P.  went  steadily  for  the 
crevasses  guarding  the  foot  of  the  snow  wall  which  drops 
from  the  Corridor  to  the  Plateau ;  went  steadily,  but 
doubtfully,  for  he  feared  that  the  winter's  changes  had 
made  the  route  impracticable.     The  ice  and  snow,  how- 


80  HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC 

ever,  must  be  very  obstinate  through  which  those  keen 
divergent  Zermatt  eyes  can  find  no  path,  and  the  four 
had  already  been  performing  the  part  of  flies  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  or  so  on  the  wall,  when  a  noise 
more  expressive  than  thunder  brought  them  to  a  stand. 
As  they  clung  to  the  frozen  snow,  and  glanced  out  to 
the  right,  they  saw  the  Ancien  Passage  swept  by  an 
avalanche  of  ice-blocks  suflScient  to  have  shattered  all 
Chamonix.  The  whole  broad  couloir  through  its  utmost 
length  appeared  to  be  in  breathless  motion,  and  far  down 
onto  the  Plateau  the  vast  masses  roared  and  ran,  as 
if  some  evil  spirit  within  were  urging  each  on  furiously 
farther  than  the  other.  P.  P.  gazed  sternly  on  the 
rolling  chaos  with  the  left  eye,  and  deftly  flashed  on 
Couttet  the  reproachful  right,  asking  with  expressive 
thumb  where  was  his  guarantee.  H.  constituted  him- 
self the  spokesman  of  the  party,  and  observed  with 
characteristic  nonchalance  that  by  Jove  it  was  as  well 
they  were  not  there.  Some  time  after,  when  they  were 
near  the  top  of  the  snow  wall,  another  avalanche  swept 
down  the  passage,  and  they  had  the  satisfaction  of 
feeling  that  if  they  had  adopted  that  route  they  must 
have  missed  the  grandeur  of  this  second  sight  and 
sound.* 

The  Corridor  was  rather  dreary  walking,  with  only 

'  There  was  a  terrible  accident  here  not  long  after,  a  whole  party 
swept  away  and  killed,  except  a  guide  who  was  mounting  by  the 
edge  of  the  couloir  instead  of  in  the  couloir  itself.  As  the  guide 
was  Sylvain  Couttet,  I  reported  to  the  chef-guide  his  persistence 
in  my  own  case,  and  he  was  suspended. 


HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC  81 

a  slight  ascent,  and  nothing  more  interesting  than 
softish  snow ;  but  at  the  upper  end  a  glorious  view  of 
southward  peaks  opened  out,  and  the  Mount  Maudit 
in  the  immediate  foreground  was  exceedingly  grand. 
Here,  in  obedience  to  the  sun's  warnings,  extra  wraps 
were  taken  off  before  commencing  the  assault  of  the 
interminable  height  of  the  Mur  de  la  Cote,  up  the 
whole  of  which  no  single  step  was  made  in  advance 
without  the  assistance  of  P.  P.'s  axe.  The  other  party 
had  made  no  halt  at  the  head  of  the  Corridor,  and  were 
now  within  distant  hail ;  and  it  was  amusing  to  hear 
after  a  time  the  voice  of  their  head  guide  coming 
rolling  up  the  ice,  with  a  cool  request  that  P.  P.  would 
cut  the  steps  a  little  nearer  to  each  other,  as  his  mon- 
sieurs  found  them  rather  wide.  We  made  them  a  little 
wider  after  that. 

Step-cutting  is  generally  a  slow  process,  and  on 
clear  blue  ice  it  is  not  bad  to  accomplish  an  average  of 
one  a  minute ;  but  here  the  continuity  of  the  ice  sur- 
face was  sometimes  broken  by  frozen  snow,  which  cut 
more  readily,  and  so  the  second  party  never  caught 
us  up.  The  short  halt  after  each  step,  while  the 
next  was  being  cut,  made  the  ascent  of  the  strangely 
smooth  and  steep  Mur  an  easy  matter  for  the  Herrs, 
and  allowed  abundance  of  time  for  attempting  to 
appreciate  the  view.  But  whether  it  had  really  been 
harder  work  than  it  seemed,  or  whether  the  diminish- 
ing amount  of  necessary  air  began  to  produce  an  effect, 
G.  called  a  halt  at  the  top  of  the  Mur,  on  the  edge  of 

G 


82  HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC 

the  level  plain  which  leads  to  the  final  Calotte,  and 
harangued  the  party  in  general.  It  was  not,  he  said, 
that  he  was  in  any  way  losing  pluck,  but  he  was 
decidedly — in  the  body — somewhat  gravelled,  and  he 
must  call  for  constant  short  halts  for  the  remainder  of 
the  ascent.  Since  an  early  breakfast  the  day  before 
(and  it  was  now  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning)  he  had 
eaten,  he  declared,  a  certain  amount  of  bread  and 
butter,  and  the  thigh  of  a  Chamonix  poulet,  the  gros  in 
the  bill  referring  to  the  price  rather  than  the  size  of 
the  bird.  Besides,  he  was  taking  up  a  lame  leg  to  the 
summit,  which  every  second  step  made  more  lame,  and 
faintness  and  fatigue  together  produced  a  sort  of  mal 
de  mer.  P.  P.  answered  that  he  was  very  glad  the 
Herr  had  spoken  out,  instead  of  ruining  the  ascent  by 
foolishly  struggling  on  till  he  was  done.  H.,  on  the 
other  hand,  did  not  like  it  quite  so  well.  He  was 
fresher  than  when  they  started,  and  was  evidently  good 
for  a  rapid  race  to  the  summit ;  and  moreover  he  was 
terribly  afraid  lest  the  other  party  should  reach  the  top 
almost  as  soon  as  they,  for  then  the  world  of  Chamonix, 
now  gazing  eagerly  with  all  its  telescopes  from  the 
other  side  of  the  mountain,  would  believe  that  the 
parties  had  made  the  ascent  together.  So  he  kept 
helping  G.  with  a  tug  of  the  rope  when  the  step  was 
steeper  than  usual,  timing  the  tug  with  more  zeal  than 
discretion,  and  cheering  him  on  with  a  youthful  in- 
genuousness which  made  that  aged  and  emotionless 
traveller  smile  in  spite  of  himself;  now  crying,  '  See 


HOW  WE   DID   MONT  BLANC  83 

how  near  we  are !  A  few  minutes  more ! '  and  now 
appealing  to  other  feelings,  and  declaring  that  the 
party  below  was  coming  on  apace.  For  the  last 
quarter  of  an  hour  or  so  this  ceased,  for  the  absolute 
proximity  of  the  desired  summit  banished  for  the 
moment  all  fatigue,  and  they  mounted  promptly  to 
the  final  crest.  Here  they  found  that  twenty  yards 
off  there  was  a  point  of  snow  a  foot  higher  than  the 
level  of  the  crest,  and  these  twenty  yards  G.'s  body  and 
soul  refused  to  face  ;  but  before  he  had  time  to  collapse 
H.  put  a  strong  pull  on  the  rope,  and  hauled  him  along 
with  tottering  steps  to  the  true  summit,  whence  they 
heard  the  cannon  of  Chamonix  sending  up  a  triumphant 
welcome.  There  was  a  similar  point  in  De  Sauss are's 
time,  and  he  has  left  it  on  record  that  he  kicked  it, 
rather  with  anger  than  with  any  sentiment  of  pleasure. 
It  has  been  written  airily,  in  a  book  which  treats 
of  Alpine  matters,  that,  on  arriving  at  the  top  of  a 
certain  difficult  pass,  the  historian  of  the  ascent  pro- 
ceeded to  make  what  observations  he  could.  The 
guide  believes  that  at  that  interesting  crisis  his  Herr 
simply  threw  himself  on  his  face  and  howled,  the  only 
observations  made  being,  '  I  wish  I  was  down  again  ! ' 
^  I  wish  I  was  dead ! '  This  of  course  is  a  calumny ; 
but  when  a  long  and  elaborate  account  is  drawn  up  of 
all  that  can  be  seen  from  some  point  which  has  cost 
the  writer  many  hours  of  incessant  and  immense 
fatigue,  one  seems  to  see  him  in  an  armchair  in  his 
study,  striking  ex  post  facto  lines  of  view  on  the  map 

G   2 


84  HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC 

with  a  ruler.  And  so  the  less  that  is  said  of  the  view 
on  this  present  occasion  the  better,  beyond  the  bare 
fact  that  on  three  sides  out  of  four  the  most  perfect 
clearness  prevailed. 

From  the  head  of  the  Corridor  they  had  seen  the 
whole  mass  of  Monte  Rosa  and  the  Mont  Cervin,  and 
all  the  famous  peaks  which  realise  the  early  fable  of 
the  giants'  war  with  Heaven;  and  now  the  Oberland 
and  Dauphine  were  added  to  the  view.  H.  turned  his 
undivided  attention  to  a  box  of  sardines,  which  the 
numerous  porters  of  the  second  party  had  contrived  to 
bring  to  the  summit ;  and  a  warm  discussion  regard- 
ing the  respective  merits  of  butter  and  sardines  brought 
poor  G.'s  woes  to  the  point  of  despair,  inasmuch  as  the 
mere  sight  of  an  innocent  bread-crust  had  been  too 
much  for  him.  In  vain  P.  P.  pointed  out  theDauphin6 
Alps ;  he  only  groaned  and  turned  away.  Ah !  now 
P.  P.  told  him,  he  could  see  the  Monte  Rosa  peaks — 
and  again  he  groaned  and  turned  away;  now,  the 
Bernese  mountains  ;  till  at  last  he  studiously  faced  a 
thick  mist  which  concealed  the  lower  parts  of  Neuchatel 
and  Vaud.  But  even  there  P.  P.  had  him,  and  ex- 
plained what  he  would  have  seen  had  there  been  no 
mist.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  descend  a  little 
into  denser  air,  so  H.  was  ruthlessly  torn  from  his 
sardines,  and  carried  off  down  the  Calotte. 

About  twenty  minutes  from  the  top  they  met  a 
friend^  ascending  all  alone.      He  had  left  Chamonix 
'  Mr.  Frederic  Morshead,  of  Winchester. 


HOW  WE  DID   MONT  BLANC  85 

half  an  hour  after  midnight  with  one  porter ;  but  this 
porter  had  come  to  an  end  of  his  promised  pluck  shortly 
after  the  Grands  Mulets,  and  returned  ;  and  so  the 
Herr  came  on  alone,  making  use  of  the  steps  cut  by 
P.  P.,  and  accomplishing  a  feat  never  accomplished 
before.  While  they  slowly  continued  the  descent,  and 
the  solitary  adventurer  passed  on  to  the  summit  and 
drank  his  champagne  and  ate  his  poulet,  P.  P.  gave 
expression  to  the  most  unbounded  astonishment.  He 
knew  this  Herr's  powers  well,  had  made  many  courses 
with  him  and  others  of  the  best  members  of  the  Alpine 
Club,  and  had  said  only  the  day  before  that  there  was 
not  one  who  could  compare  with  him :  still,  he  was 
completely  overcome  by  the  adventurousness  of  the 
ascent.  '  Ah ! '  he  kept  repeating,  '  das  ist  ein 
ga-ieslicher  Herr ! '  and  griesUch  being  a  new  word,  he 
was  called  upon  for  an  explanation.  It  seemed  that 
Christian  Aimer  and  he  had  been  discussing  various 
Herrschaft,  and  among  the  chief  this  present  Herr, 
whom  Aimer  had  summed  up  with  a  deep  sigh, 
reminiscent  of  many  a  grind  more  severe  than  his  soul 
loved,  and  '  das  war  ein  grieslicher  Keisender ! '  P.  P. 
confessed  that  it  was  patois,  not  meant  for  grdsUch,  and 
he  believed  that  no  German  or  French  word  would 
quite  hit  it  off.  It  was  far  on  the  other  side  of 
schrecUichj  and  a  good  deal  beyond  heillos ;  and  heillos, 
a  great  authority  ^  has  declared,  means  past  praying 
for. 

•  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen. 


86  HOW  WE   DID  MONT  BLANC 

The  grieslicher  Herr  came  up  with  them  again  at 
the  top  of  the  Mur  de  la  Cote,  and  administered  the 
remains  of  the  champagne.  Here  G.'s  physical  faint- 
ness  caused  him  to  develop  that  excessive  and  sharp- 
tempered  prudence  which  is  so  near  akin  to  fright. 
To  an  inexperienced  eye  the  appearance  of  the  rapid, 
even  slope  of  ice  and  frozen  snow,  across  and  down  the 
face  of  which  they  must  follow  the  steps  cut  in  the 
morning,  was  so  unpleasant,  that  no  account  could  well 
exaggerate  it.  The  ice  seemed  to  shoot  clean  down  to 
the  Corridor,  with  a  slight  rocky  edge  at  the  bottom, 
beyond  which  an  insignificant  drop  to  the  Corridor 
might  be  imagined.  But  in  passing  up  the  Corridor 
in  the  ascent,  they  had  noticed  this  same  drop,  and 
instead  of  finding  it  insignificant,  they  had  been  struck 
by  the  grand  loftiness  of  the  precipice ;  and  tWb 
recollection  of  that  impression  afforded  a  most  suggestive 
measure  of  what  must  be  the  length  of  the  slope,  at  the 
bottom  of  which  the  drop  could  now  seem  so  small. 
H.  had  fed  well,  and  was  practised,  and,  moreover,  had 
experienced  the  power  of  the  rope.  G.,  on  the  other 
hand,  light-headed  and  heavy-footed,  made  every  step 
in  the  belief  that  if  he  slipped  he  must  inevitably  carry 
the  other  three  down  with  him.  The  grieslicher  Herr, 
meantime,  danced  unroped  behind,  doing  Albert 
Smith's  account  of  the  horrors  of  the  Mur. 

The  descent  from  the  Corridor  to  the  Plateau  was 
something  the  same,  only  rather  less  so,  to  use  for  once 
a   slang   expression.       Rather   less   so,   inasmuch    as. 


HOW  WE  DID   MONT  BLANC  87 

although  steeper,  it  was  more  snow  than  ice,  and  ended 
in  a  shelving  blue  crevasse  instead  of  a  solid  pitch  over 
rocks  ;  and,  besides,  the  Plateau  once  reached,  nothing 
worse  than  fatigue  had  to  be  faced. 

On  the  Plateau  the  party  halted  for  a  long  time, 

and  discussed  the  ascent.      H.  had  never  thought  it 

could  be  so  easy,  and  so  little  dangerous,  and  could 

sc-arcely  believe  that  he  had  at   last   been  up  Mont 

Blanc.     G.  allowed  that  the  ascent  was  in  all  ways  less 

than  he  had  expected,  but  expressed  his  great  surprise 

that  so  many  people  had  achieved  the  descent  in  safety, 

and  his  satisfaction  that  he  was  well  out  of  it.     Here 

for  the  first  time  he  was  set  right  about  the  power  of 

the  rope,    and  was  informed  that  P.  P.    and   Couttet 

would  have  held  themselves  and  him  with  the  most 

perfect  ease,  however  wild   a  tumble  he   might  have 

made.     This  would  have  relieved  him  immensely  on  the 

Mur  de  la  Cote,  but  still  he  repeated  that  there  was 

more  to  face  than  he  had  expected,  not  of  fatigue,  but 

of  apparent  danger,  on  the  Mur  and  on  the  descent  to 

the-  Plateau.     Then  it  was  confessed  by  the  guides  that 

many  Herrs  require  a  hand,  and  two  hands,  at  every 

trying  place ;  require  also  that  their  feet  be  guided  and 

held ;  pray  constantly  that  they  may  be  taken  back ; 

and,  in  descending,  are  shunted  down  the  worst  slopes 

like   logs  of   wood  possessed ;— indeed,  guides  are  in 

the   habit   of   saying   that   they   would   much   rather 

take  up  a  log  of  wood   of  equal  weight  than   many 

a  Herr  who  has  ^  successfully  made  the  ascent.'     One 


88  HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC 

illustrious  Alpine  traveller's  name  was  especially  taken 
in  vain. 

The  second  party  had  meanwhile  come  down,  and 

had  already  got  a  long  start  from  the  Plateau,  so  the 

four  in  the  rope,  with  the  grieslicher  Herr  unattached, 

went  off  at  a  great  pace  down  the  slopes  of  softened 

snow.     As  they  got  lower  and  lower  on  the  mountain 

they  sank  lower  and  lower  in  the  snow,  and,  for  a  long 

way,  well  above  the  knees   was  little  more   than   an 

average  depth.      Their  theory   and  practice  was  that 

they  stopped  for  nothing ;  and  so,  when  one  of  the  four 

stuck  fast  or  fell,  he  was  constrained  to  do  the  impossible, 

and   head   and  arms  and  legs  became  for  a  while  a 

spasmodic  chaos,  which  turned  out  feet  downwards  and 

face   foremost,   with   mechanical  legs,  some  yards   in 

advance  of  the  chaos  point.     Farther  down  still,  the 

passage  of  soft  snow-bridges  over  the  crevasses  became 

more  or  less  hazardous,  and  the  grieslicher  Herr  was 

persuaded  to  lay  a  hand  on  the  rope.     Here,  moreover, 

they  found  the  other  party,  and  taking  the  lead,  they 

soon  reached  the  G  rands  Mulets,  and  packed  and  started 

for  Chamonix. 

Once  across  the  last  snow,  and  down  and  across  the 
Glacier  des  Boissons,  they  ran  at  such  a  break-neck 
pace  down  the  remaining  part  of  the  descent  that  they 
'  did  '  the  watchful  authorities,  and  reached  Chamonix 
before  any  one  knew  they  were  within  an  hour  of  the 
place,  much  to  the  disappointment  of  that  excited  town. 
The  waiter  at  the  door  of  the  Royal  was  the  first  to  see 


HOW  WE  DID  MONT  BLANC  89 

them,  and  he  bolted  like  a  rabbit  with  a  ferret  behind 
to  order  the  cannon,  but  they  triumphantly  achieved 
their  rooms  before  the  salute  was  heard.  From  the 
Grands  Mulets  to  the  summit  had  been  six  hours  and  a 
half,  to  the  Grands  Mulets  again  three  and  a  half — for 
the  state  of  the  snow  did  not  allow  a  glissade — and  to 
Chamonix  well  under  three.  - 

Next  day  they  got  certificates  from  the  chef-guide. 
These  documents  stated  that  they  had  made  the  ascent, 
accompanied  by  so-and-so — tous  guides  effedifs  de  la 
Societe  des  Guides  de  Ghamonix.  Considering  the 
illegal  obstructiveness  of  the  chef  in  the  matter  of  the 
porter,  G.  pointed  out  to  him  carefully  the  ludicrous 
falseness  of  this  clause,  thereby  congealing  that  evaded 
functionary,  polite  and  stern,  and  vertical  even  in 
defeat. 

On  the  back  of  the  certificate  a  list  of  ascents  down 
to  1855  is  given.  An  early  acquaintance  will  scarcely 
know  himself  as  N.  B.  Richowor,  and  what  English 
gentlemen  may  be  represented  by  Athbrun  and 
Alpedecolatt,  and  Honourable  Jackeville,  it  is  difficult 
to  say.  Enslechndwom,  Anglais,  is  said  to  have  made 
the  ascent  on  August  16,  1854,  and  a  like  feat  would 
seem  to  have  been  performed  on  August  18,  1855,  by 
M.  K.  G.  Eirslacehndzous,  Anglais  also. 


90 


ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY^ 

Attention  has  recently  (1865)  been  called  to  the  curious 
works  of  nature  locally  known  in  Switzerland  and  in 
some  parts  of  France  as  glacises,  or  ice-caves,  being 
caves  in  which  large  masses  of  ice  are  found  throughout 
the  year,  in  latitudes  and  at  altitudes  where  ice  would 
not  naturally  be  expected  to  appear  in  summer.  Many 
of  these  are  out  of  the  reach  of  tourists  who  object  to 
face  discomforts,  not  to  say  hardships,  in  their  search 
for  the  picturesque  or  the  strange.  But  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Annecy,  in  what  is  now  the  French  depart- 
ment of  Haute-Savoie,  three  remarkable  ice-caves  are 
found,  which  can  all  be  visited  in  the  course  of  a  long 
day  from  comfortable  and  attainable  head-quarters. 
The  present  paper  contains  some  account  of  a  second 
visit  to  these  caves,  in  the  summer  of  1865,  the  object 
of  which  was  to  complete  certain  investigations  left  un- 
finished in  the  previous  year.^ 

Our  party  consisted  only  of  two  members  of  the 

>  Good  Words,  November  1,  1866. 

*  The  descriptions  of  two  of  the  caves,  the  glaci^res  of  Grand 
Anu  and  Chappet  sur  Villaz,  form  Chapters  X.  and  XI.  of  my  book 
on  the  Ice  Caves  cf  France  and  Switzerla/nd,  Longmans,  1865. 


ICE-CAVES   OF  ANNECY  91 

Alpine  Club,  one  of  whom  ^  has  on  various  occasions 
done    something    towards    maintaining   the   scientific 
character  of  that  muscular  society.     We  left  the  dili- 
gence, or  rather  it  left  us,  at  Charvonnaz,  close  upon 
Les  Ollieres,  a  hamlet  some  three-quarters  of  an  hour 
distant  from  the  residence  of  our  excellent  friend  the 
Maire  of  Aviernoz,  the  owner  of  two  of  the  glacieres 
and  our  guide  to  all,  with  whom  we  had  made  arrange- 
ments by  post  for  the  farther  exploration  of  the  caves. 
Being  breakfastless,  we  naturally  asked  for  the  nearest 
auherge  at  Les  Ollieres,  and  were  informed  circumstan- 
tially that  it  was  only  ten  minutes  off,  near  the  Church, 
an  amount  of  detail  which  might  in  itself  have  rendered 
us  sceptical  as  to  the  existence  of  the  auherge,  if  we  had 
not  been  fresh  from  England.     We  went  on  for  more 
than  one  ten  minutes,  each  new  peasant  assuring  us 
that  there  was  no  such   thing   nearer  than  Thorens, 
which  we  knew  to  be  some  miles  off,  and  declaring  that 
we  could  not  even  be  supplied  with  bread  or  milk  awo 
Ollieres.     At  length  a  larger  house  appeared  at  some 
small   distance   from   the    path,   and   we   determined, 
auherge  or  no  auherge,  to  breakfast  there.     M.  Joly,  for 
such  we  eventually  discovered  the  distinguished  name 
of  the  proprietor  to  be,  was  supercilious  at  first;  but 
after  some  explanations  as  to  our  position  and  inten- 
tions, he  became  polite  and  elaborately  hospitable. 

His  welcome  hospitality  went  the  length  of  milk 
and  bread.     The   bread  was  black  bread.     It  was  a 
'  The  Keverend  Professor  T.  G.  Bonney,  D.Sc. 


92  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

whole  loaf,  and  we  could  not  get  into  it.  M.  Joly 
chopped  off  a  piece  of  crust  at  one  side,  with  a  small 
hatchet,  and  carried  it  off  to  his  little  horse.  Then  we 
got  at  the  inside. 

On  enquiring  about  M.  Mitral,  the  Maire  of  Avier- 
noz,  and  M.  Rosset,  the  Instituteur  of  that  commune, 
we  found  that  M.  Joly  was  a  friend  of  both,  and  he 
proposed  to  accompany  us  as  far  as  the  Mairie,  a  pro- 
posal which  we  accepted  with  polite  raptures.  He  put 
on  his  best  hat  and  coat  accordingly,  and  led  the  way. 
Finding  that  we  were  ecclesiaMiques  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  he  proceeded  to  ask  precisely  the  same  ques- 
tions that  the  schoolmaster  of  Aviernoz  had  asked  the 
year  before,  couching  them  in  such  very  similar  lan- 
guage that  I  am  disposed  to  believe  it  is  a  part  of  the 
religious  instruction  of  the  district  to  slander  the  faith 
of  our  Church. 

When  we  reached  the  Mairie,  about  eight  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  we  found  that  M.  Mitral  had  gone  out  to 
work  in  his  fields,  under  the  impression  that  the 
weather  was  too  bad  to  allow  of  our  projected  visit,  and 
M.  Rosset  was  still  in  bed.  The  Mayoress  meanwhile 
received  us  with  some  empressement,  and  sent  for  the 
Maire  and  awoke  the  schoolmaster.  The  latter  ap- 
peared first,  in  a  state  of  great  delight  by  reason  of  the 
aiTival  of  his  friend  of  the  previous  year,  and  of  some 
squalor  by  reason  of  the  hastiness  of  his  toilette.  We 
shook  hands  most  affectionately ;  but  with  that  insular 
coldness  which  characterises  even  the  most  adaptable 


ICE-CAVES   OF  ANNECY  93 

Englishman,  I  abstained  from  embracing  and  saluting 
him,  to  his  evident  surprise.  He  was  much  impressed 
by  the  presence  of  the  vrai  savant,  my  companion  to 
whom  I  introduced  him.  He  rejoiced  greatly  in  our 
turning  up  on  the  day  we  had  fixed,  inasmuch  as  it  was 
his  weekly  holiday,  and  he  could  therefore  accompany 
us  without  the  necessity  of  any  ingenious  devices  to 
excuse  his  absence  from  scholastic  duties,  such  as  he 
had  employed  the  year  before.  Presently  the  Maire 
arrived.  He,  unlike  the  schoolmaster,  did  not  look  so 
well  as  in  the  previous  year.  The  end  of  his  nose  was 
decidedly  and  fixedly  red,  and  his  incessant  shrug  had 
ended  in  chronic  high  shoulders. 

Considerable  preparations  had  been  made  for  our 
expedition.  One  of  the  domestics  was  to  accompany 
us  as  porter;  and  a  monsieur  from  Annecy,  a  good 
friend  and  confrere  of  the  Maire's,  had  engaged  to  come 
out  and  give  us  his  countenance  for  the  day.  Indeed, 
he  had  promised  to  condescend  so  far  as  to  call  upon 
us  at  the  Hotel  de  Geneve,  and  accompany  us  from 
Annecy  to  Aviernoz,  but  that  he  had  not  done.  To 
enhance  his  merits,  M.  Metral  informed  us  that  he  was 
an  auhergiste.  As  he  did  not  appear  before  the  start 
from  the  Mairie,  his  alpenstock  was  made  over  to 
Bonney,  whose  trusty  weapon  had  been  lost  the  week 
before  on  a  railway  in  Brittany.  The  new  possessor 
was  not  as  grateful  as  he  ought  to  have  been  for  the 
honour,  misdoubting  the  sustaining  power  of  a  long 
and  thin  mottled  bamboo — for  such  the  stock  was — 


94  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

with  a  point  something  like  the  broken  awls  with  which 
boys  used  to  arm  their  reed  arrows,  in  the  days  when 
boys  were  boys  and  made  their  own  offensive  weapons. 

A  steep  ascent  through  fir  woods  brought  us  in  two 
hours  to  the  furthest  of  the  Maire's  three  chalets,  where 
we  encountered  a  particularly  disagreeable  hrouillard, 
and  endeavoured  to  console  ourselves  by  lunching  on 
uncooked  ham  and  boiled  milk.  Bonney  was  scientific 
enough  to  take  an  altitude  observation  with  his  aneroid, 
and  fastidious  enough  to  broil  his  ham  on  the  end  of  a 
stick,  marks  of  the  civilised  savant  which  caused  the 
assembled  party  to  marvel,  and  brought  upon  the  poor 
Maire  the  affliction  of  burned  fingers  in  the  course  of  a 
praiseworthy  effort  of  imitation  with  respect  to  the  ham. 
Twenty  minutes  from  this  shewed  the  mouth  of  the  first 
rfladere,  the  glaciere  of  Grand  Anu,  as  Rosset  had 
spelled  it  for  me  the  year  before,  though  now  he  said 
that  ahn  would  be  a  better  spelling.  As  we  stood 
amid  rude  vegetation  at  the  edge  of  the  huge  pit  in 
whose  side  is  the  entrance  to  the  cave,  the  appearance 
of  the  vast  portal  below,  with  its  gigantic  architrave  of 
a  single  block  almost  regular  enough  to  give  the  idea 
of  art,  was  exceedingly  impressive;  and  the  large 
masses  of  piled  snow  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the 
pit,  and  led  into  the  darkness,  added  much  to  the 
strangeness  of  the  scene.  The  perpendicular  depth  of 
the  pit  is  120  feet,  and  the  descent  of  more  than  half  of 
this  is  by  the  snow  which  has  resisted  the  summer's 
heat.     Bonney  made  an  excellent  sketch  from  a  point 


ICE-CAVES   OF  ANNECY  95 

a  few  feet  below  the  edge  of  the  pit,  in  spite  of  the 
difficulty  of  drawing  down-hill. 

The  snow  had  very  much  increased  since  the  last 
year,  and  it  gave  M.  Joly  much  fear.  That  upright 
man  came  slowly  and  stiffly  on,  at  each  step  tottering 
on  the  verge  of  becoming  an  avalanche,  and  not  re- 
assured by  the  dreadful  yells  of  Rosset,  who  had  pre- 
ceded him  and  developed  a  mania  for  waking  the 
subterranean  echoes.  M.  Joly  arrived  at  the  bottom  at 
last ;  but  it  was  evident  even  in  that  dim  light  that  he 
had  left  his  colour  behind,  and  from  observations  made 
during  the  day  it  is  certain  that  he  never  quite  re- 
covered it.  The  increase  of  snow  was  still  more  per- 
ceptible at  the  mouth  of  the  cave  than  on  the  side  of 
the  pit  of  descent ;  and  where  there  had  been  in  the 
previous  year  a  neat  and  precise  pyramid  of  that 
material,  there  was  now  a  huge  mis-shapen  mass, 
almost  blocking  up  the  entrance.  The  amount  of  ice 
on  the  walls  was  very  great,  much  greater  than  before, 
and  its  folds  and  curves  were  beyond  description 
beautiful  and  grand.  To  my  great  satisfaction,  the 
prismatic  structure  of  the  ice,  which  many  of  those 
whom  I  had  consulted  on  the  subject  had  attempted  to 
explain  away,  was  very  beautifully  and  clearly  marked, 
and  we  chopped  out  at  random  masses  of  ice  composed 
entirely  of  separable  prisms.  We  found,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  that  an  hexagonal  arrangement  pre- 
vailed ;  but  there  were  apparently  many  exceptions, 
and  in  numerous  cases  the  bounding  lines  of  the  end 


96  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

surfaces  of  the  prisms  were  not  straight  lines.  Some  of 
the  prisms  were  decidedly  of  the  nature  of  truncated 
pyramids,  and  others  were  twisted.  The  ice  in  the 
more  solid  masses  seemed  to  be  but  little  less  hard  and 
difficult  to  cut  by  reason  of  this  structure.  The  pieces 
chopped  out  usually  broke  off  at  the  depth  of  from  one 
to  two  inches  below  the  surface,  and  prisms  of  that 
length  were  easily  separated  from  the  mass  by  means 
of  a  penknife ;  very  often  our  fingers  alone  sufficed  for 
the  operation. 

A  pit  in  the  ice  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  cave  was 
the  point  on  which  our  hearts  were  set.  I  had  found 
it  on  my  former  visit,  and  had  fathomed  it  to  a  depth 
of  70  feet,  the  aperture  at  top  being  a  yard  or  four  feet 
across.  One  side  of  the  pit  was  the  solid  rock  wall  ot 
the  cave ;  the  other  sides  were  the  ice  of  the  floor.  We 
nad  brought  from  England  a  sufficient  length  of  the 
stoutest  Alpine  club  rope,  and  pulleys  running  on  bars 
of  iron,  with  an  abundance  of  strong  staples  to  make 
our  proposed  descent  free  from  danger.  To  make  it 
if  possible  comfortable,  I  had  caused  to  be  made  a 
broad  and  strong  belt  of  stretching-girth  and  leather, 
that  we  might  not  be  cut  by  the  rope  while  being  let 
down.  At  the  mouth  of  the  original  pit  of  entrance  we 
had  cut  three  strong  limbs  of  young  fir  trees,  which 
were  to  be  laid  across  the  pit,  and  used  as  the  frame- 
work for  the  pulleys  supporting  the  rope.  But  alas ! 
the  first  sight  of  the  edge  of  the  pit  made  it  too  evident 
that  our  plan  could  not  answer.     Notwithstanding  the 


ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY  97 

great  increase  of  ice  on  the  walls  of  the  cave,  the  ice 
forming  the  floor  had  disappeared  to  the  extent  of 
nearly  a  foot  in  depth;  and  as  it  had  departed  irregularly 
about  the  mouth  of  the  pit,  and  the  opposite  side  was 
sheer  rock  with  a  narrow  ledge  at  the  former  level  of 
the  ice,  there  was  no  place  for  the  bars  of  wood  to  rest 
upon.  Indeed,  it  was  unpleasant  work  to  approach  the 
pit  at  all,  in  the  dim  light  which  alone  reached  that 
side  of  the  glaciere,  and  for  further  safety  we  lay  flat  on 
our  faces,  and  thrust  our  heads  over  the  edge  to  look 
down  into  the  utter  darkness,  knowing  from  my  pre- 
vious visit  that  the  ice  caved  away  sharply  under  our 
feet.  We  had  brought  out  a  number  of  yards  of  mag- 
nesium wire  for  the  illumination  of  the  lower  regions ; 
but  when  we  began  to  make  experiment  thereof,  we 
found  that,  without  some  further  contrivance  than  we 
had  the  means  of  effecting,  the  wire  was  of  no  use  to  us. 
Each  motion  of  the  hand,  or  jerk  of  the  string  which 
supported  the  wire,  caused  the  ignited  portion  to  snap 
off,  and  after  a  score  of  attempts  we  fell  back  upon  our 
oil  lamps.  Bougies  had  been  intended  to  be  our  main 
stay  for  all  ordinary  purposes,  but  when  we  asked  the 
Maire  for  some  at  his  house,  he  assured  us  that  there 
was  not  a  candle  of  any  kind  in  the  whole  commune, 
none  nearer  than  Thorens,  indeed.  Of  oil  lamps  we  had 
two.  One  was  our  own  property,  a  bull's-eye  lantern 
purchased  for  the  occasion  in  Cambridge,  and  it  turned 
out  to  be  the  most  utter  imposture  ever  perpetrated, 
dying  in  an  unscrupulous  and  unseemly  manner  within 

H 


98  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

a  minute  of  each  fresh  re-arrangement  of  the  wick.  The 
other  was  a  lamp  of  the  country,  from  the  luncheon 
chalet,  looking  completely  past  work,  but  doing  its  little 
best  when  tried.  This  we  lowered  steadily,  with  the 
care  which  might  be  expected  of  men  whose  only  lumi- 
nary was  being  committed  to  unknown  and  perilous 
depths.  As  the  feeble,  twinkling  light  descended,  it 
shewed  in  passing  that  what  had  before  been  bare 
rock  had  now  a  thick  coating  of  ghost-like  ice,  pro- 
fusely decorated  with  large  corbel  towers  and  massive 
pendants  ;  and  though  immediately  under  where  we  lay 
the  solid  ice  which  formed  the  floor  of  the  glaciere  caved 
inwards,  the  pit  seemed  to  be  closely  surrounded  with 
ice  through  three-fourths  of  its  circumference,  and 
wherever  the  scanty  light  of  the  oil-wick  penetrated,  we 
saw  still  the  same  glacial  decoration.  Between  sixty 
and  seventy  feet  below  the  surface,  the  lamp  struck  a 
floor  of  ice,  and  as  we  paid  out  more  line  it  glided 
smoothly  down  the  slope,  passing  at  length  under  an 
arch  in  the  rock,  which  hid  it  from  our  view  at  a  depth 
of  seventy-three  feet.  Just  before  its  disappearance, 
the  flame  burst  for  a  moment  into  something  like  bril- 
liancy, and  the  flash  revealed  to  us  the  smoothest 
possible  slope  of  dark  ice,  passing  on  as  far  as  we 
could  see.  This  was  close  upon  200  feet  below  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  and  the  temptation  te  prosecute 
our  designs  was  naturally  great.  But,  independently 
of  the  fact  that  there  was  no  possible  j^oint  d'appui 
for  our  apparatus  of  cords  and  pulleys,  it  struck  us 
that   the    rope,  in   swinging  about   as  we   descended, 


ICE-CAVES   OF  ANNECY  99 

must  detach  some  of  the  heavy  corbels  of  ice,  and 
launch  them  upon  the  adventurous  head  below.  Any- 
one of  them  would  have  been  sufficient  to  fracture 
an  ordinary  skull.  Besides,  the  slope  at  the  bottom 
was,  so  far  as  we  could  tell  by  the  one  glimpse  we  had 
caught  of  it,  so  exceedingly  smooth,  and  so  very  suffi- 
ciently rapid,  that  a  man  suspended,  as  we  had  pro- 
posed, with  a  belt  under  his  arm-pits  supporting  all 
his  weight,  could  never  effect  a  fast  footing,  and  so 
must  be  content  to  slide  down  shapeless  out  of  the 
sight  of  those  above,  till  such  time  as  water,  or  a  preci- 
pice, or  the  end  of  the  90  feet  of  rope,  should  arrive. 
Under  all  the  circumstances,  we  determined  that  no 
good  could  come  of  an  attempted  descent.  Even  the 
dictum  of  a  Cambridge  friend,  who,  having  the  lowest 
possible  opinion  of  all  approach  to  instruments  and 
observations  in  connection  with  the  Alps,  had  told  us 
that  '  if  we  were  smashed,  it  would  be  a  comfort  to  be 
smashed  in  the  interests  of  science,'  could  not  to  any 
practical  extent  ameliorate  the  unpleasantness  of  the 
situation.  All  the  same,  it  would  be  a  useful  thing  to 
determine  how  far  towards  the  centre  of  the  earth  this 
strange  stream  of  subterranean  ice  rolls  down  the  wide 
fissures  of  the  limestone  rock. 

We  decided  sorrowfully  that  this  investigation  must 
be  left  to  other  and  better-equipped  explorers,  and 
made  a  start  for  the  second  glaciere.  This  had  declined 
to  be  found  in  the  previous  year,  having  only  been  dis- 
covered two  years  before,  and  never  since  visited.     On 

H  2 


100  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

the  receipt  of  my  note  to  the  Maire,  Rosset  had  gone 
off  for  a  hunt  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  place  where 
the  Maire  had  told  us  it  certainly  ought  to  be,  and 
having  succeeded  in  finding  it,  had  marked  it  down. 
Nevertheless,  we  were  taken  hither  and  thither  among 
the  chasms  and  furrows  in  the  white  live  rock,  which 
here  formed  the  surface,  and  up  and  down  the  pro- 
jecting masses  of  stone,  in  a  very  unsystematic  manner. 
Patience  and  endurance,  however,  met  with  their  re- 
ward after  a  time,  and  the  coy  glacidre  stood  at  length 
revealed.  Nothing  could  be  more  unlike  the  grand 
wild  opening  of  the  former  gladere,  than  the  unpreten- 
tious hole  which  afforded  the  only  means  of  reaching 
VEnfer,  a  name  which  provided  the  schoolmaster  with 
inexhaustible  material  for  witticisms  bordering  on  the 
blasphemous,  and  sometimes  transgressing  the  boun- 
dary. A  descent  under  an  archway  of  rock,  by  a  slope 
of  muddy  shingle  for  forty  feet  or  so,  ushered  us  into  a 
large  low  hall  with  a  floor  of  ice,  of  which  we  could 
see  no  termination  any  way,  for — unlike  the  previous 
glaciere — daylight  failed  as  soon  as  we  reached  the 
bottom  of  the  slope.  Once  more  we  gave  the  impostor 
lantern  a  chance,  but  it  failed  even  more  miserably  than 
before.  The  native  lamp,  which  had  braved  the  dangers 
of  the  pit  we  dared  not  face,  did  not  give  sufficient 
light  to  render  locomotion  under  its  guidance  safe, 
especially  as  we  were  a  party  of  six,  and  only  one 
could  have  the  lamp  at  once.  We  therefore  resorted 
to  the  magnesium  wire,  and  saw  at  once  the  form  and 


ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY  101 

dimensions  of  the  cave.  The  floor  appeared  to  be  of 
solid  ice,  perfectly  level  and  unbroken,  and  formed  an 
area  approximately  circular,  with  a  diameter,  as  we 
afterwards  determined  by  measurement,  of  seventy-five 
or  eighty  feet.  The  roof  was  ten  or  twelve  feet  above 
the  floor,  and  the  surface  of  the  rock  composing  it  was 
almost  even.  From  one  side  to  the  other  it  scarcely 
varied  at  all,  and  the  effect  of  this  even,  natural  roof, 
stretching  away  always  parallel  with  the  floor,  was  very 
remarkable.  Progressing  slowly  at  such  times  as  the 
magnesium  wire  chose  to  burn,  and  remaining  carefully 
without  motion  during  the  frequent  intervals,  we  ar- 
rived at  length  at  a  hole  in  the  ice  floor,  and  into  this 
the  two  Englishmen  made  their  way.  It  soon  turned 
under  the  ice,  and  we  proceeded  by  the  light  given  by 
a  succession  of  wax  vestas  to  explore  its  further  recesses, 
sternly  forbidding  any  of  the  others  to  come.  Little 
came  of  it,  however,  except  that  we  saw  enough  to 
shew  that  the  ice  composing  the  floor  of  the  cave  was 
of  great  thickness.  On  our  return  to  the  surface  of  the 
ice  floor,  we  found  that  the  others  of  our  party  had 
become  sufficiently  accustomed  to  the  darkness,  or 
twilight,  to  move  cautiously  without  a  candle.  They 
had  discovered  that  at  the  farthest  end  of  the  cave  the 
ice  did  not  quite  reach  up  to  the  wall  of  rock,  but  was 
rounded  off  in  a  swelling  wave,  leaving  a  sort  of  Berg- 
schrund  or  gap  a  foot  or  two  across,  formed,  of  course, 
on  a  principle  the  very  opposite  of  that  of  a  Bergschrund 
proper.    Into  this  hole  they  threw  stones,  which  crashed 


102  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

down  over  ice  for  what  sounded  like  some  considerable 
distance,  and  then  fell  heavily  into  water.  It  seemed 
to  be  possible  to  effect  a  descent  at  one  end  of  this 
chasm,  where  the  ice  joined  the  rock,  so  Bonney  put 
on  the  belt  and  we  let  him  down  with  the  lamp.  He 
reported  that  at  a  depth  of  about  twelve  feet  a  tunnel- 
shaped  hole  passed  steeply  down  under  the  main  mass 
of  ice,  and  at  the  bottom  of  this  tunnel  water  was 
visible.  He  threw  down  several  large  pieces  of  stone, 
and  '  made  all  the  observations  he  could,'  and  then  we 
hauled  him  up  again.  The  other  Englishman  in  turn 
assumed  the  belt,  and  was  let  down  with  a  string  for 
measuring  distances,  and  a  supply  "of  magnesium  wire 
to  illuminate  the  depths.  The  length  of  the  tunnel 
proved  to  be  twenty-three  feet,  and  its  slope  we  guessed 
at  about  30",  so  that  the  thickness  of  the  mass  of  ice 
forming  the  floor  of  the  glacidre  was  here  about  twenty- 
four  feet.  The  water  was  collected  in  a  cave  in  the  ice, 
lyiug  in  a  most  suggestively  unpleasant  manner  at  the 
end  of  the  tunnel,  which  was  perhaps  four  feet  high. 
The  standing  ground  provided  by  nature  for  these  ob- 
servations was  of  the  narrowest  and  most  unsatisfactory 
description,  and  we  were  obliged  to  have  the  rope  kept 
on  a  constant  stretch  to  check  the  frequent  commence- 
ments of  a  slide  down  into  the  tunnel.  While  half 
standing,  half  hanging,  I  chanced  to  kick  a  large  piece 
of  decayed  wood  towards  the  mouth  of  the  tunnel,  and 
getting  onto  the  slope  it  glided  rapidly  down,  and  fell 
with  a  loud  splash  into  the  water.     A  second  or  two 


ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY  103 

elapsed,  when  a  horrible  gurgling  groan  issued  from 
some  cavernous  depth,  and  almost  startled  me  into 
losing  my  hand-hold.  They  heard  it  distinctly  above, 
and  were  asking  what  could  that  noise  be,  when,  to  our 
dismay,  the  same  rolling  groan  came  from  far  away 
under  the  ice,  feeling  its  way,  as  it  were,  towards  the 
tunnel,  and  up  to  where  I  stood.  At  periods  of  several 
seconds  it  continued  to  be  repeated,  losing  nothing  of 
its  horror,  as  long  as  I  stayed  down  below.  After  they 
had  hauled  me  up  it  still  lasted,  growing  rather  fainter, 
and  occurring  at  considerably  less  intervals,  till  at  last, 
when  we  went  away,  it  was  going  at  the  rate  of  thirty- 
nine  groans  a  minute.  Those  who  have  heard  a  large 
hydraulic  ram  at  work,  and  can  conceive  that  sighing, 
groaning  noise  transferred  to  such  a  place  as  I  have 
described,  and  made  horrible  by  the  acoustic  properties 
of  the  black  depths  from  which  it  issued,  may  have  some 
idea  of  what  it  was.  The  schoolmaster  suggested,  with 
a  ready  ingenuity  which  I  believe  came  very  near  the 
truth,  that  the  noise  was  related  to  that  class  of  noises 
which  water  running  from  the  neck  of  a  bottle  allows 
the  entering  air  to  make.  He  imagined  that  the  piece 
of  wood  I  had  despatched  to  the  lower  regions,  had 
been  sufficiently  heavy  to  remove  some  obstacle,  which 
had  before  prevented  the  accumulated  waters  from 
passing  through  a  hole  into  a  reservoir  still  further 
underground,  and  that  the  noise  we  heard  was,  on  a 
large  scale,  exactly  the  gurgling  noise  which  attends 
the  flow  of  fluid  from  a  bottle.     It  is  unnecessary  to 


104  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

suggest  any  of  the  various  modifications  of  this  theory, 
which  the  tastes  of  different  theorisers  may  form.  It 
may  very  probably  be  that  some  explanation  of  the 
noise  can  be  given  on  grounds  radically  different  from 
those  which  Rosset  enunciated,  but  for  the  present  I  am 
quite  inclined  to  believe  that  he  hit  off  the  true  theory, 
or  something  very  like  it. 

At  the  mouth  of  the  gladdre  we  found  a  young  man 
in  a  blue  blouse,  whom  the  Maire  introduced  as  his 
confrere,  the  aubergiste  from  Annecy,  who  had  come  out 
to  give  himself  the  pleasure  of  joining  our  party.  With 
this  accession  to  our  forces,  we  marched  off  to  the  third 
glaciere,  down  a  very  remarkable  face  of  riven  and 
eroded  rock.  The  cheminee  leading  to  this  glaciere  was 
found  without  difficulty,  and  four  of  us  ascended  to  the 
entrance  of  the  cave.  The  Maire  had  declared,  early 
in  the  day,  that  though  he  had  not  entered  this  glaci^e 
when  I  was  last  there,  he  fully  intended  to  explore  it 
with  us  now  ;  but  he  changed  his  mind  at  last,  and  did 
not  even  attempt  the  cheminee.  His  last  year's  care- 
fulness about  risking  his  neck,  in  the  descent  from  the 
entrance  cave  to  the  fissure  in  which  the  glaciere  lay, 
had  been  attributed  to  a  patriotic  determination  that  so 
exalted  a  person  as  the  Maire  of  Aviemoz  must  at  all 
hazards  be  kept  unhurt ;  but  he  had  no  such  excuse 
now,  for  he  informed  us  that  the  elections  had  taken 
place  three  days  before,  and  another  was  Maire.  He 
had  been  eligible  for  re-election,  but  had  not  desired  it. 
Indeed,  it  was  nothing  but  trouble,  being  Maire  ;  there 


ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY  105 

was  nothing  to  be  made  by  it,  and  the  work  was  great. 
Fiveorsix  francs,  for  journeys  which  he  wasforced  to  make 
on  communal  business,  that  was  all  the  reimbursement 
he  received.  It  appeared,  however,  that  whether  eligible 
or  not,  he  had  no  chance  for  re-election,  for  the  prefet 
had  put  down  the  name  of  the  man  to  be  chosen,  and 
the  commune  had  been  obedient.  It  was  a  conge  d'elire, 
accompanied  by  a  letter  recommendatory.  The  election 
had  occurred  after  three,  instead  of  after  five  years,  so 
M.  Metral's  period  of  dignity  had  not  been  so  long  as 
he  had  expected. 

The  Maire,  then  (for  so  we  were  still  at  liberty  to 
call  him,  inasmuch  as  the  bare  sapin,  which  is  planted 
in  front  of  the  official's  house,  and  points  out  to  the 
world  the  position  of  the  Mairie,  had  not  been  removed), 
and  the  monsieur  from  Annecy,  remained  at  the  bottom 
of  the  cheminee  ;  indeed,  the  Maire  eventually  made  his 
way  to  the  fire  of  some  Italian  charcoal  burners,  where 
we  found  him  roasting  on  our  return.  M.  Joly,  still 
manfully  maintaining  an  upright  back,  clambered  stiffly 
up  the  cheminee,  and  posed  himself  in  the  small  cave  at 
top,  a  sort  of  dark  ante-room  to  the  narrow  internal 
fissure  which  penetrates  into  the  heart  of  the  mountain, 
with  its  roof  of  rock  immensely  high  above.  He  had 
long  before  relapsed  into  a  sort  of  moody  silence,  caused 
by  his  fatigue,  and  broken  only  by  occasional  questions 
to  which  he  seemed  not  to  require  any  answer,  such  as, 
'  The  English  are  the  greatest  people  in  the  world  ? ' 
*  You  don't  believe  in  baptism  ?  '  and  so  on.     The  rest 


106  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

of  the  party  made  towards  the  drop  which  leads  from 
this  cave  to  the  fissure,  and  we  observed  that  there  was 
an  absence  of  the  icy  current  of  air  which  had  so  tried 
our  endurance  and  our  candles  on  the  previous  visit. 
On  lowering  the  solitary  little  oil-lamp  down  this  drop, 
we  found,  to  our  astonishment,  that  the  fissure  was 
choked  with  snow,  commencing  eight  or  nine  feet  below 
the  platform  where  we  stood,  and  passing  down  as  far 
as  we  could  see, — which  is  not  saying  much,  for  the 
range  of  the  lamp  did  not  command  a  radius  of  six  feet. 
I  had  believed,  on  my  previous  visit,  that  it  was  quite 
impossible  for  snow  to  reach  the  fissure,  and  I  am  now 
at  a  loss  to  know  how  it  got  there,  unless  the  lie  of  the 
hills  and  gullies  exposes  the  mouth  of  the  cave  to  strong 
northerly  winds,  which  drift  the  snow  through  the 
various  windings  of  the  approach  to  the  fissure.  We 
could  see  that  the  snow  shrank  from  the  sides  of  the 
fissure,  and  so  presented  a  sharp  descending  arete,  with 
what  may  be  called  a  Bergschrund  on  a  small  scale  on 
either  side.  To  pass  down  this  in  the  dark  was  as 
unsatisfactory  a  process  as  can  well  be  imagined,  for 
the  friction  caused  by  the  contact  of  a  broad  shoulder 
with  the  rugged  side  of  the  fissure  was  often  the  only 
hold,  excepting  the  sharp  edge  of  unresisting  snow,  on 
which  the  foot  dared  place  no  reliance  whatever. 
Considering  how  useful  the  bull's-eye  lantern  would 
have  been,  we  rather  wished  we  had  the  man  who  sold 
it  at  one  or  two  of  the  worst  parts  of  the  descent. 

The  snow  reached  as  far  as  the  entrance  to  the  first 


ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY  107 

ice-chamber.  This,  a  gallery  of  forty  feet  long,  shewed 
a  complete  flooring  of  ice,  whereas  in  the  previous  year, 
rather  earlier  in  the  summer,  there  had  only  been  ice 
at  the  further  end  of  the  floor.  The  ice  cascade  which 
blocked  that  end  was  much  higher  and  more  striking 
than  on  that  occasion,  when  it  measured  seven  yards  in 
height.  It  must  have  been  now,  at  the  least,  half  as 
much  again,  and  the  ice  was  thicker  and  more  beautiful. 
The  most  limpid  parts  of  it  were  prismatic,  and  were 
so  clear  that,  as  we  moved  the  lamp  backwards  and 
forwards,  the  meshes  of  the  network  of  shadow  cast 
through  the  ice  upon  the  rock  behind  were  most  distinct, 
being  magnified  and  diminished,  of  course,  according 
as  the  lamp  was  nearer  or  further  ofi".  In  one  part  we 
observed  that  the  mass  was  formed  of  prisms  of  very 
large  size,  the  ice  being  so  clear  and  limpid  that  the 
shadow  cast  by  the  dividing  lines  was  seen  as  if  nothing 
were  interposed  between  us  and  the  rock  on  which  it 
rested.  Some  of  these  prisms  were  at  least  three  inches 
across  the  exposed  end,  and  one  or  two  cast  shadows  of 
most  perfect  hexagons ;  their  length,  that  is,  the  thick- 
ness of  the  ice  in  this  particular  part,  must  have  been 
half  a  foot,  and  was  possibly  a  good  deal  more.  Their 
beauty  was  so  great,  that  here,  as  in  the  first  glaciere, 
we  groaned  over  the  impossibility  of  carrying  them 
away.  Some  parts  of  this  cascade  were  interspersed 
with  large  and  eccentric  air-bubbles,  but  in  the  best 
prisms  there  was  not  a  flaw  of  any  kind. 

It  was  now  time  to  descend  to  the  lower  chamber  on 


108  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

the  right-hand  side  of  the  fissure,  everything  being,  of 
course,  involved  in  the  most  pitchy  darkness.  The 
solid  ice  floor  of  this  chamber,  and  the  remains  of 
columns  at  the  entrance,  were  apparently  in  precisely 
the  same  state  as  when  I  had  last  seen  them.  But  the 
corner  which  we  were  bent  upon  exploring  was  much 
changed,  unfortunately  for  our  schemes.  It  was  before 
closed  by  a  curtain  of  ice,  and  a  hole  in  the  curtain  was 
easily  made,  large  enough  to  admit  a  man.  Within 
the  curtain  I  had  found  a  gentle  slope  of  ice  passing 
down  into  a  supposed  chamber,  which  gave  forth  sounds 
of  water  and  of  rock  in  answer  to  the  lumps  of  ice 
despatched  along  the  slope.  The  curtain  at  that  time 
formed  a  low  roofing,  which  did  not  permit  me  to  stand 
upright,  but  allowed  room  for  sitting  on  the  ice-slope 
and  using  the  axe  to  cut  steps.  I  had  desisted  on  that 
occasion  from  proceeding  more  than  a  yard  or  two  down 
the  slope,  in  consequence  of  the  absence  of  ropes,  and 
the  impossibility  of  finding  any  holding  for  hands  or 
feet  in  case  of  a  slip.  We  were  now  well  provided  with 
ropes,  and  we  attacked  the  curtain  in  great  spirits.  It 
was  evident  at  a  first  glance  that  the  amount  of  the  ice 
which  formed  the  curtain  had  very  much  increased,  but 
we  were  not  prepared  for  the  labour  it  cost  us  to  hew  a 
hole  through  it.  The  difficulty  of  this  process  was 
made  greater  by  the  extreme  slipperiness  of  the  ice  on 
which  those  who  hewed  and  those  who  looked  on  were 
obliged  to  stand.  Whenever  the  hewer  put  more  than 
ordinary  vigour  into  a  stroke,  his  foothold  gave  way, 


ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY  109 

and  he  slid  along  the  ice  bent  double  and  with  all  sides 
foremost,  in  that  fatuous  way  which  marks  a  beginner's 
appearance  on  skates.     This  was  only  partially  remedied 
by  roughening  with  the  axe  the  ice-floor  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  desired  hole  in  the  curtain.     When  at 
length  we  had  all  had  our  turn,  and  had  all  skated 
about  involuntarily  and  inelegantly,  and  were  all  pretty 
well  tired,  a  hole  sufficiently  large  to  admit  a  man,  legs 
first,   was    achieved,    and  we   sent  in  the  oil-lamp  to 
explore.     The  icy  current  which  rushed  out  from  the 
hole  was  almost  too  much  for  the  feeble  flame,  and  blew 
it  about  so  much  that  we  could  see  nothing  of  what  was 
inside.     We  therefore  lighted  a  piece  of  the  magnesium 
wire,  and  after  many  unsuccessful  attempts  contrived 
to  light  up  the  interior  with  it.     In  place  of  a  tolerably 
roomy  cave,  with  floor  and  roof  of  ice,  and  ice  on  one 
side   and   the  other,  we  found  a  mere  trough.      The 
diminution  in  size  was  caused  by  the  lowering  of  the 
icy  roof,  which   now  approached  much  nearer  to  the 
slope  forming  the  floor,  and  ran  parallel  with  it  as  far 
as  we  could  see,  until  the  flooring  passed  down  into 
invincible    darkness,   and   the   roof  joined   the  rock. 
What  we  had  called  a  curtain  was  in  fact  a  grand  and 
solid  mass  of  ice,  streaming  down  from  a  fissure  in  the 
rock,  and  completely  occupying  all  that  corner  of  the 
chamber.     This  mass  of  ice  reached  within  two  feet  of 
the  ice  floor  through  all  its  thickness,  and  the  curtain 
in  which  we  had  hewn  a  hole  was  a  veil  hung  before 
the  entrance  to  the  broad  and  low  tunnel  thus  made. 


110  ICE-CAA^S  OF  ANNECY 

The  roof  was  very  prettily  groined,  and  was  studded 
with  crystals,  and  here  and  there  graceful  pillars  ran  up 
to  it  from  the  floor.     There  was  nowhere  room  to  sit 
upright,  barely  suflScient  room  for  a  man  lying  down  ; 
and  there  was  no  possible  chance  of  using  an  axe.     It 
was   clear,    however,   that    a    man  lying    on  the  ice 
could   worm  himself  along   down  the  slope,   and   ac- 
cordingly  the  belt  was  put   on  and  I  essayed  to  go, 
entering  feet  first,  and  taking  our  only  light  with  me. 
But  before  I  was  well  in  a  feeling  of  suffocation  came 
on.     The  situation  was  too  much  like  what  it  must  be 
to  be  buried  alive.     Whatever  happened,  it  was   im- 
possible  to   do  much  more  than  raise  the   head  and 
indulge  in  lateral  motion  of  the  arms  and  legs.      The 
idea  was  so  choking  that  I  began  to  resolve  to  go  no 
further.     There  seemed  to  be  no  reason  for  supposing 
that  there  would  be  more  vertical   space  further  on, 
where  the  slope  became  more  rapid  and  turned  a  comer 
of  the  rock  ;  so  that  it  was  among  probabilities  that  an 
explorer  in  my  circumstances  would  be  let  gradually 
down   by  the  rope,  gliding   on  his   back  round   this 
corner,   and   there   would  remain  jammed   when  the 
attempt  to  pull  him  up  again  was  made.      Besides,  the 
horrible   devouring  gurgle  of  the  depths  of  the  last 
glaciere  was  still  in  our  ears,  and  this  tunnel  in  which  I 
lay  might  end  in  sudden  water  just  as  the  tunnel  in 
VEnfer  did.     Water  we  knew  to  be  roupd  the  corner  at 
some  greater  or  less  distance,  and  the  idea  of  plunging 
in,  feet  first,  ofi"  a  slippery  slope  of  ice,  without  room 


ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY  HI 

for  any  kind  of  struggle,  and  without  a  certainty  that 
the  spasmodic  tirez  !  tirez  !  would  reach  through  all 
obstacles  to  the  men  at  the  other  end  of  the  rope, 
finally  decided  the  question.  Before  calling,  however, 
to  them  to  haul  me  up  through  the  hole,  I  observed 
that  the  roof  of  this  strange  trough  was  thickly  set  with 
the  same  brown  case-flies  which  I  had  found  in  the 
glacieres  of  La  Genolliere  and  St.  Livres  in  the  Jura,  as 
also  here,  in  the  previous  year.  The  present  specimens 
struck  me  as  being  smaller  than  those  I  had  before  seen, 
and  I  secured  two — being  all  I  could  accommodate  in 
fingers  already  encumbered  by  an  axe  and  an  oil-lamp. 
Then  they  were  told  to  haul  me  out,  which  they  did 
with  a  will,  evidently  enjoying  it  much  more  than  I  did, 
and  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  a  human  being  feels  more 
than  a  log  of  wood  may  be  supposed  to  do,  when  jerked 
abruptly  on  his  back  over  a  little  obstacle  a  foot  high, 
consisting  of  a  solid  threshold  of  ice  jagged  with  recent 
hewing.  While  we  were  placing  the  two  flies  in  the 
box  prepared  for  them,  we  found  that  two  others  had 
attached  themselves  to  my  beard,  and  one  of  these  was 
of  an  entirely  different  species.  These  insects  have  since 
been  submitted  to  the  inspection  of  the  Entomological 
Society.  Three  of  them  are  specimens  of  Stenophylax, 
the  largest  being  probably,  though  not  certainly,  S. 
hieroglyphicus  of  Stephens,  as  the  specimen  brought 
from  an  ice-cave  in  the  Jura  had  already  been  supposed 
to  be.  The  two  smaller  caddis  flies  are  either 
8.  testaceus  of  Pictet,  or  some  very  closely  allied  species. 


112  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

The  remaining  insect  is  an  ichneumon  of  the  genus 
Paniscus,  but  no  one  has  been  able  to  identify  it  with 
any  described  species.  It  differs  from  all  its  congeners 
in  the  marking  of  the  throat,  and  in  this  respect  bears  a 
strong  resemblance  to  some  species  of  Ophion ;  never- 
theless, it  is  a  true  Paniscus}  The  case-flies  may  have 
been  washed  into  the  cave,  somehow  or  other,  in  the 
larva  form,  and  come  to  maturity  on  the  ice  where  they 
have  lodged.  Case-flies,  it  is  well  known,  have  the 
power  of  adapting  themselves  to  great  extremes  of  cold  ; 
the  same  flies  which  come  to  maturity  in  one  year,  or 
even  in  one  season,  in  protected  and  warmer  regions, 
requiring  two  and  three  and  even  four  years  to  arrive 
at  the  perfect  state  at  higher  altitudes,  or  in  colder 
latitudes.  But  this  explanation  will  not  hold  in  the 
case  of  the  ichneumon,  which  is  a  parasitic  genus  on 
larvae  of  terrestrial  insects.  The  ice  trough  in  which 
the  flies  were  found  must  have  been  hermetically  sealed 
at  the  end  by  which  we  entered.  No  one  who  had 
seen  the  huge  curtain  of  ice  which  shut  in  that  corner 
of  the  cave  could  doubt  the  fact.  The  other  end  plunged 
down  into  darkness,  and  blocks  of  ice  despatched  down 
the  slope  fell  at  length  into  water.  A  great  entomo- 
logical authority  is  of  opinion  that  the  presence  of  the 
ichneumon  proves  conclusively  that  some  communica- 
tion with  the  outer  air  existed  at  the  time,  or  had  very 
recently  existed,  but  the  depths  into  which  the  trough 

*  I  have  to  thank  Mr.  R.  M'Lachlan  and  Mr.  Albert  Miiller  for 
valuable  information  and  suggestions  with  respect  to  these  insects. 


ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY  113 

plunged  pass  straight  on  towards  the  heart  of  the 
mountain  in  whose  face  the  original  entrance  to  the 
fissure  lies.  Another  gentleman,  who  has  for  several 
years  investigated  the  insect  fauna  of  Switzerland,  is 
inclined  to  think  that  the  curtain  could  not  have 
hermetically  sealed  the  entrance  to  the  trough,  and 
that  through  its  interstices  the  insects  had  flown.  I 
feel  sure  that  if  he  had  seen  the  place  he  could  not  have 
thought  this.  In  any  case  it  is  exceedingly  remarkable 
that  this  particular  cavity  in  the  ice  should  be  found  to 
contain  such  a  very  large  number  of  the  same  insects 
that  I  had  found  in  two  of  the  Jurane  ice-caves  the 
summer  before.  The  flies  were  perfectly  stationary  on 
the  ice  until  touched,  when  they  ran  actively,  and  we 
had  great  difficulty  in  catching  the  ichneumon. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  main  fissure  from  that 
on  which  this  triangular  chamber  opened  out,  we  found 
the  same  curious  channel  of  motionless  water  that  we 
had  observed  the  year  before,  lying  about  a  yard  and  a 
half  wide  between  vertical  walls  of  rock  which  passed 
up  out  of  sight.  By  lighting  the  fissure  with  mag- 
nesium wire  we  discovered  with  some  difficulty  the 
other  end  of  this  singular  channel,  far  away  from  the 
furthest  point  we  could  reach.  The  rock  at  the  end 
rose  up  vertically  like  the  sides,  and  we  did  not 
succeed  in  detecting  the  roof.  The  man  who  accom- 
panied us  from  the  Mairie  declared  that  he  had  long 
known  the  glaciere,  and  had  been  employed  to  extract 
ice  from  it  for  M.  de  Chosal  of  Annecy ;  and  that  on 

I 


114  ICE-CAVES   OF  ANNECY 

one  occasion  he  had  found  one  side  of  the  channel  of 
water  solid  ice,  along  which  he  had  passed  till  he 
reached  yet  another  ice-cave. 

This  supplementary  visit  to  the  glacier es  of  Mont 
Parmelan  and  the  Montague  de  I'Eau  had  the  efifect  of 
raising  our  opinion  of  the  grandeur  of  the  natural 
phenomena  connected  with  them ;  while  our  obser- 
vations seemed  to  shew  that  no  very  deep  scientific 
reasons  for  their  existence  need  be  sought.  The 
presence  of  a  large  quantity  of  snow  in  the  cave  last 
described  contradicted  the  opinion  formed  upon  the 
observations  of  the  previous  visit,  and  shewed  that  in 
this  cave  also  snow  may  have  played  the  large  part 
it  certainly  does  play  in  many  glaciereSy  in  the  pro- 
duction of  the  larger  masses  of  ice  which  form  the 
solid  floor  of  the  caves.  Very  probably  such  glacieres 
may  be  found  in  connection  with  many  of  the  rieigi^es, 
or  snow-holes,  which  abound  in  the  Jura,  in  cases  at 
least  where  the  water  formed  by  the  melting  snow  does 
not  run  off  entirely  by  natural  drainage,  but  lodges  in 
a  cave  at  the  bottom  or  side  of  the  pit.  And  from  the 
nature  of  snow  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  mere  presence 
of  a  large  superincumbent  mass  will  tend  to  convert 
the  lower  parts  into  ice,  when  the  infiltration  of  surface 
water  is  taken  into  account,  without  the  necessity  of 
supposing  a  complete  thaw  of  the  snow  and  a  separate 
freezing  of  the  resulting  water.  The  decorative  parts, 
which  appear  on  the  walls  in  the  shape  of  curtains,  and 
as  pillars,  and  stalactites,  and  stalagmites,  are  originally, 


ICE-CAVES   OF  ANNECY  115 

no  doubt,  formed  in  the  end  of  winter  or  in  early  spring, 
and  are  maintained  by  the  low  temperature  which  a 
cave  half  full  of  ice  and  snow  must  possess.  Probably, 
indeed  almost  certainly,  additions  are  made  to  these  por- 
tions of  the  ice  by  the  congelation  of  some  of  the  water 
which  courses  over  them,  or  falls  on  to  them  from 
fissures  in  the  roof  and  walls  of  the  cave,  at  later 
periods  of  the  spring  and  summer.  It  is  worthy  of 
special  notice  that  in  the  course  of  a  visit  paid  to  two 
of  the  Jurane  ice-caves  in  the  middle  of  January  some 
years  ago,  a  small  course  of  water  was  found  to  be 
running  down  the  face  of  the  rock  where  in  summer  is 
nothing  but  a  solid  sheet  of  ice  ;  and  a  certain  pathway 
in  the  cave,  which  in  the  hot  months  is  difficult  by 
reason  of  a  thick  crust  of  ice,  was  bare  rock.  This 
appears  to  point  to  early  spring  as  the  time  when  the 
formation  of  the  decorative  parts  of  the  ice  takes 
place. 

The  temperatures  in  the  three  glacieres  after  we  had 
been  in  them  some  little  time  were  respectively  as 
follows: — 1*2  centigrade,  1-5,  and  2*5,  being  higher 
than  the  register  of  the  previous  year,  observed  a  few 
weeks  earlier  in  the  season.  The  misconduct  of  the 
aneroid  renders  the  altitude  observations  less  trust- 
worthy, but  the  heights  of  the  three  caves  are  probably 
from  4,900  to  5,500  feet.  With  regard  to  the  prismatic 
structure  so  very  clearly  marked,  it  seems  possible  that 
when  large  masses  of  ice  are  subjected  for  a  length  of 
time   to   the   summer   temperature  of  these   caves,  a 

I  2 


116  ICE-CAVES  OF  ANNECY 

degree  or  two  degrees  above  freezing,  the  surface  takes 
the  opportunity  afforded  by  the  partially  relaxed  con- 
dition of  its  molecules,  to  assume  to  a  definite  extent 
the  crystalline  form  which  in  a  more  modified  degree 
is  natural  to  it. 

Note. — The  question  of  the  prismatic  structure  of  the  ice 
is  dealt  with  in  Chapter  XVIII.  of  my  Ice  Caves  of  France 
and  Switzerland.  I  read  papers  on  the  subject  at  the  Bath 
meeting  of  the  British  Association  in  1864. 


117 


A    WINTER   EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND  "^ 

The  reading  world  has  been  abundantly  supplied  of 
late  years  with  accounts  of  Swiss  excursions  made  in 
the  summer  season,  but  Switzerland  in  the  winter  is 
comparatively  a  novelty.  It  may  not  be  without 
interest,  therefore,  to  attempt  a  description  of  an  ad- 
venturous expedition  into  the  Jura  in  the  third  week  of 
January  of  the  present  year  (1866).  Our  party  consisted 
of  five  persons,  two  being  men — whom  we  may  call 
the  Doctor  and  Monsieur,  following  the  nomenclature 
adopted  by  our  Swiss  friends — and  one  a  boy,  who  may 
without  offence  to  his  dignity  be  called  Charley ;  the 
remaining  two,  being  ladies,  must  maintain  a  modest 
incognito  as  M.  and  H.  The  object  of  our  excursion 
was  to  visit  one  or  two  curious  caves  of  the  district, 
containing  vast  masses  of  permanent  ice,  under  cir- 
cumstances which  would  seem  to  afford  no  further 
opportunity  than  any  ordinary  cave  affords  for  the 
preservation  of  that  material  through  the  hot  season. 
Having  seen  these  caves  in  the  summer  months,  and 
made  joyful    use    of    their    cooling   stores,   we  were 

'  Orice  a  Week,  December  22,  186G. 


118       A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND 

desirous  of  visiting  them  at  the  season  when  the 
annual  addition  to  the  supplies  of  ice  might  be  in 
course  of  formation. 

Our  intention  had  been  to  leave  Geneva  by  the 
route  for  France,  passing  at  the  back  of  the  Dole  on 
foot  by  the  Faucille  road,  and  so  down  to  St.  Cergues 
and  Arzier,  leaving  the  main  road  before  reaching  the 
famous  French  fortress  of  Les  Kousses.  But  the  high 
valley  behind  the  Dole  is  so  completely  unprotected 
from  the  worst  inclemencies  of  the  weather,  that 
prudence,  and  regard  for  our  weaker  members,  forbade 
the  attempt  to  face  it,  and  the  less  romantic  rail  con- 
veyed the  party  to  Nyon.  Thence  a  walk  of  eight  or 
pine  miles,  over  much  snow  in  parts,  led  up  the  Jura 
to  Arzier,  from  which  village  the  expedition  to  the 
caves  was  to  start  on  the  following  day.  One  small 
cave,  indeed,  had  been  intended  for  the  afternoon  of 
our  arrival,  but  various  delays  made  it  necessary  to 
omit  that  portion  of  the  programme,  and  we  visited 
instead  some  of  our  old  summer  haunts. 

It  was  strange  to  see  everything  so  familiar,  and  yet 
so  utterly  different  from  what  we  had  ever  known  it  to 
be.  Lovely  and  treacherous  as  the  steep  green  slopes 
of  summer  pasture  had  always  been,  they  were  yet 
more  lovely  and  treacherous  now  that  they  lay  smooth 
with  untrodden  snow.  Pure  as  the  fresh  green  of  the 
young  meadows  might  be  in  summer,  their  winter 
dress  was  purer  still.  And  never  on  the  loveliest 
summer's  day  had  the  atmosphere  been  so  exquisitely 


A   WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND       119 

clear,  the  view  so  wonderfully  grand.  The  whole  range 
of  Mont  Blanc  stood  out  free  from  the  dark  seams 
which  in  the  hot  season  mark  the  desertion  of  the 
snows ;  and  from  Mont  Blanc  eastward  the  horizon  was 
studded  with  all  the  white  peaks  which  link  the  sum- 
mits of  Savoy  with  the  furthest  giants  of  the  Bernese 
Oberland. 

More  than  one  chaotic  fall  as  we  progressed  forcibly 
reminded  us  that  there  were  other  changes  besides  in- 
creased beauty  to  be  taken  account  of ;  for  on  slopes 
where  in  summer  the  foothold  had  been  sufficiently 
good  for  all  practical  purposes,  a  hearty  laugh  at  the 
mishaps  of  any  of  the  party  was  now  almost  sure  to 
end  in  a  long  roll  down  the  face  of  the  snow. 

That  night  to  our  dismay  the  weather  changed. 
As  we  sat  over  an  excellent  though  primitive  supper, 
the  shutters  were  driven  in  by  a  sudden  gust  of  wind, 
sweeping  down  pans  and  the  whole  stock  of  cups  and 
saucers,  and  creating  a  disturbance  which  could 
scarcely  have  been  greater  if  the  house  had  come 
down,  a  catastrophe  which  for  a  time  we  believed  to 
have  arrived.  The  cold  was  intense,  and  every  one 
secured  a  hot  bottle  for  the  feet  before  going  to  bed. 

Sunday  morning  brought  pouring  rain,  heavy  snow 
having  fallen  in  the  night,  and  only  three  of  us  struggled 
out  to  the  little  village  church,  the  others  staying  at 
home  and  preparing  the  walking  boots  of  the  party. 
About  this  time  we  found  that  our  arrangements  for 
guides  could  not  be  carried  into  execution,  as  one  of 


120      A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND 

our  meditated  companions  was  suffering  from  pleu- 
risy, and  the  other  had  sprained  his  ankle  two  days 
before.  So  in  default  we  took  a  man  whom  they  re- 
commended as  walking  well,  working  well,  and  talking 
little,  and  about  two  o'clock  on  the  Sunday  afternoon 
we  started  for  the  more  immediate  neighbourhood  of 
the  caves. 

St.  Georges  was  the  village  for  which  we  were  to 
make  our  way ;  it  was  where  in  summer  we  had  more 
than  once  stopped  en  route,  and  had  found  respectable 
accommodation  au  Cavalier,  The  country  was  deep  in 
snow,  through  which  we  ploughed  in  a  most  praise- 
worthy manner,  and  there  was  so  dense  a  fog  that 
any  one  who  separated  himself  ever  so  little  from  the 
party  was  for  a  time  lost. 

We  swept  through  more  than  one  village,  to  the 
utter  astonishment  of  such  of  the  inhabitants  as  could 
catch  a  glimpse  of  us,  and  were  plodding  on  our  way, 
desperately  wet  and  slightly  out  of  heart,  when  suddenly 
the  sun  burst  out  on  the  right,  opening  a  rift  in  the 
hrouillard,  and  there,  in  the  centre  of  the  narrow  rift, 
appeared  the  head  of  Mont  Blanc,  with  a  suddenness 
and  clearness  which  seemed  almost  magical.  Then  the 
view  expanded,  and  above  the  boiling,  whirling,  tearing 
wreaths  of  mist  we  saw  the  Bernese  mountains,  the 
peaks  near  the  Rhone  valley,  and  even — in  another 
direction — the  highest  summits  of  the  Jura.  The  very 
guide  was  moved  to  speech  and  feeling ;  and  we  all 
stood  still,  lost  in  admiration,  till  unmistakable  sensa- 


A  WINTEE  EXCUESION  IN  SWITZEELAND       121 

tions  about  the  feet  and  ankles  reminded  us  that  a 
compound  of  deep  snow  and  rain  forms  an  undesirable 
standing  ground. 

The  '  Cavalier '  seemed  to  think  at  first  that  the 
place  could  scarcely  fulfil  the  promise  of  its  sign-board — 
Loge  d  jpied.  The  woman  in  charge  was  not  prepared 
for  travellers  at  such  a  season,  and  it  was  with  difficulty 
that  we  made  our  way  upstairs  to  judge  for  ourselves 
of  the  badness  of  the  quarters.  There  was  a  good- 
sized  room,  with  a  bench  and  two  beds ;  a  miserable 
little  back  place,  containing  a  wooden  trough  filled 
with  straw,  which  counted  as  another  bedroom  ; — and 
behold  all ! 

'  Was  there  not  a  hole  of  any  kind  into  which 
Mademoiselle  could  be  put  ?  '  H.  asked. 

'  Yes,'  the  woman  said,  *  there  was ;  but '  and 

she  looked  at  Mademoiselle,  and  said,  '  No,  it  would 
not  do  ;  she  could  not  even  shew  it.' 

'  Shew  it  by  all  means,'  we  urged ;  '  Mademoiselle 
is  not  difficult.' 

It  turned  out  to  be  a  large  room,  with  a  long  table 
and  benches,  some  with  legs  and  some  without,  but  all 
in  the  vilest  state  of  dirt  and  evil  smell.  In  an  alcove 
was  a  narrow  trough,  with  straw,  to  which  the  hostess 
gave  the  style  and  title  of  a  single  bed,  the  broader 
trough  in  the  other  room  being  presumably  accounted 
a  double  bed.  As  it  was  a  question  between  quarters 
here  and  quarters  nowhere,  we  at  once  decided  to  take 
these  three  rooms  for  sleeping  purposes,  and  proceeded 


122      A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND 

to  ask  where  could  we  eat,  as  we  were  by  this  time 
hungry.  There  was  no  room  which  possessed  a  fire, 
they  told  us,  and  inasmuch  as  we  were  wet  through 
with  snow-water,  we  were  unwilling  to  put  up  with  the 
absence  of  artificial  warmth.  Distressed  to  see  us  in 
such  a  plight,  the  hostess  offered  her  own  bedroom, 
where  there  was  a  stove,  informing  us  that,  as  there 
was  an  alcove,  her  husband  and  she  would  not  mind 
our  presence,  and  we  should  do  very  well  there  for  our 
supper.  There  was  also  a  baby  a  few  months  old  in 
their  bed,  but  that,  she  supposed,  did  not  signify,  as  it 
could  be  warranted  quiet.  That  room  was  naturally 
declined.  Then  we  discovered  that  the  double-bedded 
room  had  a  fireplace,  and,  although  the  chimney 
appeared  to  be  hopelessly  choked  with  snow,  we  suc- 
ceeded in  melting  it  out  with  a  cheerful  blaze  of  wood, 
and  soon  had  a  glorious  fire.  The  table,  unfortunately, 
was  a  dissipated  sort  of  table,  and  could  not,  without 
much  care,  be  brought  near  the  fire.  When  that  feat 
was  accomplished,  one  of  its  legs  struck  work,  so  it 
rested  on  three  odd  legs  and  two  nails  in  the  wall; 
these  last  proved  eventually  to  be  too  frail  a  support, 
and  they  betrayed  the  trust  reposed  in  them  in  a  very 
treacherous  and  painful  manner.  One  tallow  candle 
was  all  the  light  we  could  procure  in  the  anbergej  so  we 
placed  the  thick  carriage-lamp  candle  we  had  brought 
for  our  subterranean  explorations  on  a  similar  prop  in 
the  wall.  But  everything  seemed  to  be  alike  rickety 
and  unsound ;  and  prop,  and  candle,  and  all,  were  soon 


A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND        123 

lodged  on  poor  Monsieur's  head,  depositing  there  an 
unwelcome  run  of  melted  bougie. 

No  one  had  a  complete  change  of  outer  or  under 
clothing,  for  we  were  obliged  to  march  light,  and  in  our 
generally  damp  state  we  did  not  make  much  profit  of 
the  two  beds  and  the  single  and  double  trough.  The 
last  was  the  worst  of  all,  for  a  considerable  amount  of 
its  straw  had  been  abstracted  for  some  purpose  or  other, 
and  the  vacancy  was  made  up  with  billets  of  wood. 
The  Doctor  and  his  wife  accordingly  got  up  next  morn- 
ing with  their  bodies  considerably  bruised,  and  their 
minds  enlightened  as  to  the  demerits  of  this  new  kind 
of  couch.  The  natural  result  of  hard  beds,  and  noisy 
clocks — for  the  clock  of  the  village  struck  in  the  wall 
of  the  double-bedded  room,  and  they  always  strike  the 
hour  twice  in  those  parts — and  late  tea,  and  universal 
difficulties,  was  that  the  nine  o'clock  fixed  for  the  start 
in  the  morning  became  a  late  ten. 

At  that  hour  the  whole  party  got  actually  under 
way  for  the  cavern  of  St.  Georges,^  a  large  cave  in  the 
hills,  below  the  surface  of  the  earth,  a  hundred  feet 
long  and  sixty  high,  entered  by  ladders  through  a  small 
hole  in  the  roof.  The  floor  is  permanently  composed 
of  ice,  of  unknown  and  great  thickness,  and  as  we  had 
frequently  visited  this  cave  in  summer,  and  found  large 
and  beautiful  sheets  of  ice  on  the  side-walls,  in  addition 
to  the  solid  flooring  of  that  material,  we  were  anxious 

1  Described  in  Chapter  II.  of  the  Ice  Caves  of  France  atid 
Switzerland. 


124       A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND 

to  determine  its  condition  in  midwinter.  The  way  by 
the  woods  was  impassable  by  reason  of  the  deep  snow, 
and  we  were  in  consequence  obliged  to  go  round  by  the 
main  road  which  passes  up  the  side  of  the  Jura.  Even 
this  would  have  been  too  much  for  us,  perhaps,  con- 
sidering our  want  of  training,  but  fortunately  men  had 
come  down  with  wood  that  morning,  and  their  cavalcade 
had  acted  as  a  sort  of  snow-plough,  and  made  our 
course  less  toilsome  than  it  must  otherwise  have  been. 
It  was  hard  enough  work  as  it  was ;  and  in  spite  of  a 
dense  fog,  which  prevented  the  rays  of  the  sun  from 
reaching  us,  we  became  so  hot  that  the  men  walked  in 
shirt-sleeves  and  the  ladies  without  wraps.  When  the 
track  of  the  woodmen  ceased  to  be  available,  we 
ploughed  along  knee-deep,  till  at  length,  after  an  hour 
and  a  halfs  walking,  the  cavern  was  almost  reached, 
and  then  the  guides  were  obliged  to  cut  branches  and 
make  a  sort  of  platform  for  us  to  stand  on,  while  they 
shovelled  away  the  snow  from  the  mouth  of  the  hole  of 
entrance. 

The  ladders  were  declared  to  be  sound,  which  had 
not  been  the  case  on  one  of  our  previous  visits,  and  we 
proceeded  to  descend,  tied  with  ropes  as  a  matter  of 
precaution,  for  the  rungs  of  the  ladders  were  more  or 
less  covered  with  ice.  To  explain  the  presence  of  the 
ladders,  it  may  be  as  well  to  say  that  ice  is  taken  from 
this  cave  in  large  quantities  during  the  summer,  to 
supply  Geneva  and  Lausanne. 

The  cave  felt  quite  warm  when  we  got  well  into  it. 


A  WINTEE  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND   125 

but  that,  sensation  was  partly  due  to  the  contradiction 
of  our  expectations,  rather  than  to  the  actual  tempera- 
ture of  the  contained  air,  for  the  thermometer  observa- 
tions gave  the  temperatures  within  and  without  the 
cave  the  same,  viz.,  half  a  degree  Centigrade  above  the 
freezing-point.  The  hygrometer  also  gave  the  same 
record  in  each  case,  a  lowering  of  half  a  degree  due  to 
evaporation. 

The  large  sheet  of  ice  which  in  summer  clothes  one 
of  the  side-walls  of  the  cave  with  fantastic  and  beau- 
tiful drapery  was  gone ;  but  there  were  grand  icicles 
hanging  freely  from  many  parts  of  the  roof,  and  some 
signs  of  the  commencement  of  another  sheet  on  the 
wall,  in  the  shape  of  mural  icicles,  partly  connected  by 
curtains.  In  one  corner  was  a  small  remnant  of  a  sheet 
of  ice,  but  it  appeared  to  be  fast  melting  away,  and  a 
minute  stream  of  water  trickled  down  a  face  of  rock  on 
which  in  summer  there  is  always  ice.  A  raised  terrace 
of  rock  and  stones,  which  in  the  hot  season  is  difficult 
by  reason  of  its  thick  covering  of  ice,  was  now  perfectly 
free  from  that  treacherous  material.  A  block  of  stone, 
three  feet  by  two,  was  covered  with  an  efflorescence  of 
ice-crystals,  like  those  of  carbonate  of  lime,  but  larger, 
being  from  half  an  inch  to  two  inches  and  a  half  long, 
some  hexagonal  and  others  pentagonal.  These  were 
joined  at  their  bases,  but  stood  out  clear  from  the  stone. 
The  great  lake  of  solid  unfathomed  ice,  forty-five  feet 
by  fifteen,  was  dry,  very  much  drier  than  in  summer. 
A  large  quantity  of  snow  lay  in  one  corner  of  the  cave, 


126   A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND 

where  even  in  August  a  collection  of  unmelted  snow  is 
found ;  this  supply  penetrates  in  winter  by  a  hole  in 
the  roof,  near  to  that  by  which  an  entrance  to  the  cave 
is  obtained,  the  latter  hole  being  permanently  covered 
with  trunks  of  trees  to  shelter  the  ice  in  summer  at  the 
bottom  of  the  cave. 

Near  this  collection  of  snow  we  had  always  under- 
stood that  there  was  said  to  be  a  hole  or  tunnel  in  the 
flooring  of  ice,  but  we  had  not  succeeded  in  finding  it 
in  the  course  of  previous  visits.  The  man  whom  we  had 
engaged  at  St.  Georges  to  act  as  our  porter  and  guide, 
told  us  that  some  men  had  let  their  sack  of  bread  fall 
into  it  thirteen  years  ago,  and  a  knife  as  well,  and  there 
they  must  be  still,  for  no  one  had  ever  yet  been  down. 
This  hole  Monsieur  was  determined  to  find,  and  before 
long  he  found  it,  a  nasty  dark  place,  with  only  a  slope 
of  the  hardest  and  most  slippery  ice  to  descend  by.  He 
was  speedily  roped,  and  let  down  for  nine  or  ten  feet 
into  the  darkness,  when  M.  also  adventured  with  an- 
other rope,  and  was  lowered  to  the  same  point,  a  sort 
of  bridge  of  ice  and  rock,  lying  under  the  collection  of 
snow.  The  Doctor  and  H.  and  the  two  Swiss  worked 
the  ropes  meanwhile,  obedient  to  the  slightest  signals 
from  the  lower  regions,  and  the  boy  Charley  made  him- 
self generally  useful. 

The  standing-place  thus  reached  by  the  two  adven- 
turers afibrded  an  opportunity  of  examining  the  further 
depths  of  the  hole  by  means  of  a  lantern  and  blazing 
paper,  the  latter  being  the  more  useful  plan,  for  the 


A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND        127 

lantern  always  turned  its  one  glass  side  to  the  ice  when 
it  was  lowered,  and  was  therefore  useless,  after  the 
fashion  of  such  lanterns  on  such  occasions.  The  further 
slope  was  an  unsatisfactory  sort  of  place  for  a  descent. 
It  consisted  of  a  rather  steep  arete  of  ice,  with  sides 
sloping  no  one  could  say  whither.  If  the  adventurers 
could  make  sure  of  keeping  to  the  arete  for  fifteen  feet 
or  so,  all  would  be  well.  But  there  was  no  certainty 
about  the  matter,  and  the  rope  was  of  little  use,  as 
ropes  will  not  work  in  curved  lines  round  a  comer. 
However,  by  help  of  a  pole  which  had  fallen  into  the 
cavity  and  become  frozen  onto  the  surface  of  the  ice, 
this  difficulty  was  got  over ;  but  only  to  shew  that  there 
lay  more  and  insurmountable  difficulties  in  front  and 
on  each  side.  Here  was  found  a  red  measuring-tape, 
which  appeared  to  be  in  excellent  condition,  but  melted 
away  into  nothing  when  it  was  touched,  a  fate  that 
may  have  come  spontaneously  upon  the  sack  of  bread 
and  the  knife.  Further  than  this  it  seemed  impossible 
to  go,  nor  could  it  be  determined  how  far  the  streams 
of  ice  flowed  down.  We  could  see,  however,  for  some 
fifteen  feet  further  than  we  had  descended,  making  in 
all  about  fifty  from  the  mouth  of  the  hole  in  a  tortuous 
course. 

The  rapidity  of  the  descent,  when  once  commenced, 
the  darkness  and  discomfort  of  the  depths,  and  the 
difficulty  of  the  ascent,  recalled  of  course  a  trite  piece 
of  Virgil.  The  ascent  was  really  most  unpleasant,  for 
it  consisted  of  a  series  of  hauls  over  any  little  impedi- 


128       A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND 

ments  that  might  lie  in  the  way,  and  round  sharp 
corners  guarded  by  jagged  bits  of  rock.  At  one  of 
these  corners,  M.  was  so  nearly  pulled  in  two  by  a 
sudden  jerk,  and  by  reason  of  her  dress  catching,  that 
she  had  not  breath  to  cry  ^  Hold ! '  and  was  in  conse- 
quence all  but  choked  by  the  strap  to  which  the  rope 
was  attached.  The  Swiss  men  rubbed  their  chins  when 
they  looked  down  and  saw  the  commencement  of  what 
she  had  gone  through,  and  talked  to  each  other  in 
whispers  about  courage.  It  was  observed  that  at  two 
or  three  places,  where  a  little  assistance  was  needed 
after  the  party  had  set  off  for  the  return,  they  helped 
H.  in  the  most  careful  manner,  but  respectfully  drew 
aside  to  let  M.  take  care  of  her  own  most  competent 
self 

The  walk  back  to  St.  Georges  was  accomplished  in 
less  than  an  hour.  More  wood  had  been  brought  down 
and  had  further  cleared  the  road.  The  method  of  dragging 
wood  down  the  mountain-side,  over  the  snow,  is  primi- 
tive. A  sort  of  driving  bench,  made  to  run  like  a 
sledge,  has  four  or  five  chains  attached  to  it  behind, 
each  chain  bearing  a  long  point  of  iron,  which  is  driven 
into  the  end  of  a  tree  ;  and  the  whole  apparatus  is  then 
dragged  down  together. 

When  we  arrived  at  St.  Georges,  there  was  an  hour 
and  a  half  left  for  us  to  warm  ourselves  and  make  pre- 
paration for  our  departure,  still  on  foot,  for  Biere,  from 
which  place  another  and  more  singular  ice-cave  was  to 
be  visited  next  day.    It  will  be  understood  that  starting 


A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND       129 

at  five  o'clock  on  a  January  evening  for  a  walk  of  two 
hours  and  a  half,  cannot  be  called  starting  by  daylight ; 
and  ploughing  in  the  dark  through  the  deep  slush  which 
covered  the  roads  was  the  reverse  of  pleasant.  After  a 
time  the  road  became  a  gentle  course  of  water,  and  in 
this  we  walked  patiently  till  the  lights  of  Bi^re  shone 
out  seemingly  near  at  hand,  but  practically  very  far 
ofi*,  for  a  long  and  deep  ravine  had  to  be  turned  before 
the  auherge  of  Biere  could  be  reached. 

Auherge,  however,  is  scarcely  a  respectful  name  for 
the  Hotel  de  la  Poste,  to  which  our  steps  were  bent; 
and  the  landlady,  being  full  of  guests,  adopted  the  grand 
supercilious  air  with  which  modern  hotels  at  home  have 
made  us  familiar.  The  house,  she  said,  shortly  and 
decidedly,  was  full.  It  was  in  our  power  to  retort,  as  a 
traveller,  whose  weariness  could  not  destroy  his  power 
of  sarcasm,  did  retort,  when  the  mis-manager  of  a 
famous  London  hotel  made  a  similar  statement,  '  I 
suppose,  madam,  it  is  your  affable  demeanour  that  fills 
the  hotel.'  But  we  were  too  anxious  for  a  resting- 
place  to  resort  to  such  dangerous  weapons  of  offence. 

The  firemen  of  the  neighbourhood,  three  score  and 
ten  ponipiers,  were  dining  with  their  jpomjpes  in  the 
hotel.  It  was  also  a  skin-fair  in  Bi^re.  Thus  the 
downstairs  rooms  and  passages  were  all  full  of  rabble, 
and  the  affair  looked  as  hopeless  as  could  well  be.  At 
this  crisis  a  bonny  chambermaid  came  up  to  her  mis- 
tress, and  reminded  her  that  there  were  two  spare 
rooms  with  two  beds  each,  and  one  single  room.     The 

K 


130       A  WINTER  EXCUESION  IN  SWITZERLAND 

landlady  declined  to  recognise  this  statement,  and  only- 
unbent  so  far  as  to  say  there  was  a  single  room  we 
might  have,  where  we  must  all  sleep  together.  Our 
Arzier  guide  hereupon  turned  on  his  heel  in  wrath, 
observing  loftily  that  there  was  no  occasion  for  company 
like  his  to  say  no  to  that,  and  we  trudged  off  disconso- 
lately to  look  for  another  avherge.  In  all  the  place 
there  was  only  one  bed  to  be  had.  So  we  returned  to 
the  Poste,  followed  by  a  crowd  of  idle  men  and  boys, 
who  had  been  drawn  together  by  the  strange  character 
of  our  cavalcade,  and  who  insisted  on  believing  that  we 
were  brigands,  whatever  that  may  mean  on  the  peace- 
ful slopes  of  the  Jura.  At  the  door  of  the  Poste  the 
pretty  maid  met  us.  She  had  been  sure  we  should 
return,  and  she  promised  to  use  her  influence  with  the 
mistress.  Eventually  we  got  the  three  rooms,  and  the 
maid  explained  the  reason  of  the  landlady's  objection 
to  our  having  them.  The  landlord  had  been  ill  in  bed 
for  six  weeks,  in  a  room  between  the  two  double  ones 
we  had  with  so  much  difficulty  secured,  and  his  wife 
took  us  for  German  tourists,  who  would  sit  up  all  night 
singing  boisterous  songs,  after  the  fashion  of  tourist 
parties  of  that  nation.  The  necessary  noise  of  the 
house  was  of  itself  too  much,  and  the  seventy  pompiers 
and  the  skin-fair  had  almost  driven  the  landlady  mad. 
We  soon  set  their  minds  at  rest  about  our  nationality 
and  our  sitting  up  all  night ;  and  the  natural  sympathy 
we  shewed  for  the  forlorn  case  of  the  mistress  of  the 
house  obtained  for  us  many  little  comforts  we  should 


A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND       l3l 

otherwise  have  seen  nothing  of.  Indeed,  the  landlady 
raade  us  a  fire  in  a  little  den  of  her  own,  where  we 
regaled  ourselves  on  larded  beef,  jumped  potatoes,  rum 
and  cherries,  and  a  chicken  that  seemed  to  melt  in  its 
tenderness.  Unfortunately  poor  Charley  was  attacked 
at  exactly  the  wrong  moment  by  one  of  his  favourite 
headaches,  '  a  regular  floorer,'  as  he  described  it ;  and 
as  that  sent  him  supperless  to  bed,  it  cast  some  gloom 
upon  the  party.  The  bed  accommodation  was  very 
decidedly  superior  to  that  with  which  we  had  grappled 
at  St.  Georges ;  but  the  Doctor  had  to  be  satisfied  with 
a  stiff  little  sofa  considerably  shorter  than  himself,  and 
about  eighteen  inches  wide,  stuffed  so  as  to  display  a 
rounded  crest  along  the  middle  of  the  cushion,  down 
which  Doctor  and  duvet  kept  rolling  in  moments  of 
relaxed  vigilance  The  ludicrous  airs  of  the  pompiers 
songs  kept  every  one  awake  for  a  time,  and  the  people 
of  the  house  made  periodical  appeals  to  the  firemen  to 
be  quiet  or  to  leave.  They  declined  to  do  either ;  and 
at  two  o'clock  they  were  still  singing  and  shouting  with 
unabated  vigour.  M.  slept  during  the  verse,  but  awoke 
invariably  for  the  chorus  and  applause. 

Some  of  us  were  up  at  seven  the  next  morning,  as 
we  had  arranged  overnight  to  start  at  nine  for  the  ice- 
cave  ;  but  the  men  of  the  party  were  only  beginning 
breakfast  at  nine,  and  it  was  a  quarter  to  eleven  before 
we  left  the  village.  This  difficulty  about  getting  off" 
early,  it  may  be  observed,  is  a  marked  feature  in  winter 
excursions.     Our  trusty  Arzier  guide  had  secured  for 

K    2 


132       A    WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND 

us  the  services  of  the  Inspector  of  Forests,  who  had 
rented  a  chalet  near  the  cave  for  three  years,  and  there- 
fore knew  the  place  welj.  He  did  all  he  could  to  dis- 
suade us  from  going.  More  than  halfway  no  one  had 
yet  been  since  the  snow  came.  As  far  as  halfway  a 
man  might  have  been — in  effect,  a  man  had  been ;  but 
we  should  find  it  two  feet  deep  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  way.  The  ladders,  he  expected,  were  good,  and  if  we 
were  scientific  people  (apparently  a  synonym  for  /cms), 
the  expedition  was  certainly,  as  far  as  he  could  see, 
possible.  When  he  found  that  we  had  not  come  to 
Biere  for  the  purpose  of  turning  back,  he  consented  to 
accompany  us.  The  air  was  colder  than  on  the  previous 
day,  and  gloriously  clear ;  the  bright  blue  sky,  seen 
through  the  snow-laden  branches  of  the  dense  firs,  was 
too  brilliant  for  the  eye  to  encounter  without  pain. 
The  snow  was  so  deep,  well  above  our  knees,  that  we 
durst  not  look  about  us  without  stopping  to  do  so,  for 
otherwise  the  chance  of  coming  down  on  our  faces  was 
very  great  indeed.  Sometimes  Monsieur  led,  sometimes 
the  inspector,  sometimes  the  guide;  the  rest  planted 
their  legs  in  the  holes  thus  made,  save  when  a  stumble 
caused  one  or  the  other  to  flounder  about  a  little  on 
their  own  account.  The  snow  became  deeper  and 
deeper,  till  a  six-foot-three  man  plunged  in  frequently 
as  deep  as  his  legs  would  let  him  go,  and  still  made  no 
bottom.  We  passed  over  a  stone  wall  and  a  gate  with- 
out knowing  that  we  had  done  so.  M.  and  H.  were 
wet  through  and  through  to  well  above  the  waist,  and 


A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND       133 

at  one  place  H.  stuck  hard  and  fast,  and  could  only 
with  much  difficulty  be  drawn  out.  Every  one  grew 
silent,  and  some  rather  sad.  At  length,  after  more 
than  three  hours'  walking,  a  long  steep  ascent  appeared 
right  ahead,  at  the  further  end  of  a  valley  into  which 
we  dipped,  and  the  idea  of  pounding  up  this  slope  was 
too  much  for  the  endurance  of  most  of  the  party.  M., 
however,  had  been  there  before,  and  to  the  general  joy 
announced  and  maintained  that  the  slope  had  not  to  be 
encountered,  for  the  cave  was  in  the  valley  close  at 
hand.  She  was  always  right  on  such  points.  A  few 
yards  more  brought  it  into  sight,  its  yawning  black 
mouth  shewing  in  strange  and  suggestive  contrast  in 
the  midst  of  the  deep  unbroken  snow.  The  summer- 
chalet  close  at  hand  resounded  speedily  with  the  stamp- 
ing of  feet  and  chopping  of  wood,  and,  better  still,  in 
an  incredibly  short  space  of  time  the  roar  of  a  blazing 
fire  was  added  to  the  concert,  for  which  purpose  the 
straw-beds  of  the  last  inhabitants  were  ruthlessly 
pillaged  and  exposed  to  the  action  of  wax  vestas. 
Wine  for  heating  and  spicing,  and  solids  at  discretion, 
had  been  carefully  brought  in  a  sack,  and  to  these 
creature  comforts  every  one  applied  vigorously.  The 
red  wine  of  the  country,  when  judiciously  spiced,  is  by 
no  means  despicable  as  a  cordial,  and  the  guide  and  the 
inspector  went  in  for  it  with  emphasis,  declaring  that  it 
was  parfait  amour. 

Arrived  at  length  at  the  edge  of  the  pit,  further 
progress  seemed   to   be   impossible.     The  entrance  to 


134       A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND 

this  cave,  unlike  that  of  St.  Georges,  is  by  a  deep  open 
pit,  at  the  bottom  of  which  a  grand  archway  in  the 
rock  leads  to  the  cave  proper.  For  the  descent  of  this 
pit  two  long  ladders  are  required,  which  we  found  piled 
deep  with  fresh  snow ;  and  when  the  fresh  snow  was 
knocked  off — no  pleasant  operation — the  steps  proved 
to  be  frozen  into  a  conglomerate  of  ice  and  older  snow. 
A  ledge  of  rock,  which  forms  the  resting-place  for  the 
foot  of  the  top  ladder,  was  so  deep  in  snow  that  an 
alpenstock  could  not  fathom  it.  After  much  prepara- 
tion of  the  ladders,  M.  and  H.  were  lowered  by  cords. 
Monsieur  having  pioneered.  Then  a  long  slope  of  very 
slippery  ice  was  passed,  with  similar  regard  for  safety, 
after  which  came  another  ladder  frozen  into  a  wall  of 
ice,  and  very  difficult  of  descent.  This  eventually 
landed  us  at  the  bottom  of  the  cave,  where  we  found  a 
lake  of  ice,  with  grand  masses  of  former  columns  lying 
about,  and  a  wall  of  solid  ice,  twenty  feet  high,  barring 
our  return.  On  the  strength  of  previous  information 
the  floor  was  carefully  examined  till  a  small  crack  was 
found,  and  through  this,  after  it  had  been  enlarged 
sufficiently,  M.  and  Monsieur  and  Charley  were  let 
down,  or  climbed,  into  a  lower  cave  still,  which  shewed 
a  continuation  of  the  ice- wall  seen  above,  as  far  as  the 
eye  could  penetrate  by  the  aid  of  a  candle. 

But  time  failed  for  further  explorations,  to  the  gi-eat 
annoyance  of  the  explorers.  There  was  known  to  be 
besides  a  marvellous  ice-cave  some  half  an  hour  away 
among  the  woods,  but  it  was  impossible  to  go  to  it, 


A  WINTEE  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND       135 

even  if  the  inspector  had  known  the  way,  which  he  did 
not.^  If  gentlemen  will  lie  in  bed,  or  on  a  sofa,  as  the 
case  may  be,  instead  of  getting  up  and  starting  in 
good  time,  they  must  expect  to  be  cut  short  at  the  end 
of  the  day.  H.  and  the  Doctor  had  already  been 
packed  off  some  time  ago,  for  they  had  a  dinner  party 
next  day,  and  must  catch  the  evening  train  at  Allaman 
to  give  orders.  The  rest  of  the  party  had  engaged  to 
walk  fast,  and  reach  Bi^re  in  time  for  the  Pastes 
conveyance,  which  would  take  them  to  Aubonne  and 
Allaman,  and  so  to  Geneva ;  but  there  was  not  much 
use  attempting  to  walk  fast.  A  strong  and  bitter 
wind  had  risen,  the  snow  had  become  lighter  and  more 
powdery  than  it  was  in  the  morning,  and  going  down- 
hill in  deep  snow  after  a  winter  twilight  has  well  set 
in,  is  of  all  things  the  most  bewildering  and  fatiguing. 
Every  one  arrived  at  Bidre  too  late  for  Pastes,  or  any- 
thing else.  It  was  already  pitch  dark,  and  a  great 
storm  was  brewing.  There  was  no  help  for  it  but  to 
remain  there  for  the  night,  drenched  as  we  all  were. 
The  hostess,  now  rid  of  the  pompiers,  did  her  best  to 
make  things  comfortable,  pitying  the  desperate  con- 
dition of  the  ladies  of  the  party,  whose  dresses  made 
circles  of  wet  on  the  floor  wherever  they  stood  still  for 
a  few  moments.  Thorough  ablutions,  and  such  attempts 
at  tidying  as  were  possible,  made  so  great  a  change  in 
their  appearance  that  the  maid  exclaimed  to  M. : 

»  The  descriptions  of  these  two  glaoieres  form  Chapters  III.  and 
IV.  of  the  loe  Caves  of  France  and  Switzerland. 


136       A  WINTER  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND 

'  Mademoiselle,  I  cannot  tell  you  how  many  more 
francs  you  look  worth  than  when  you  came  in  from  the 
glaciere  ! ' 

The  cuisine  maintained  its  high  character  of  the 
previous  evening,  and  the  beds  were  comfortable,  always 
excepting  the  mountainous  and  refractory  sofa.  But 
neither  bed  nor  cookery  can  make  it  other  than  dread- 
fully unpleasant  to  put  on  for  the  third  morning  the 
same  thoroughly  wet  clothes.  The  skin  and  flesh 
assume  a  parboiled  appearance  under  such  circum- 
stances, and  become  exceedingly  tender ;  and  the  idea 
of  applying  clothes  stiff  with  wet  to  the  limbs  is 
unbearable  till  the  moment  arrives  when  it  must  be 
done. 

In  spite  of  these  and  other  very  serious  drawbacks, 
it  is  well  worth  while  to  penetrate  into  the  depths  of 
the  Jura  in  midwinter.  The  skies,  and  the  loaded 
trees,  and  the  wonderful  undulations  of  the  snow-clad 
country,  have  a  charm  which  no  other  season  and  no 
other  scene  can  surpass.  In  a  scientific  point  of  view 
it  was  worth  while  to  determine  that  there  was  actually 
less  ice  in  the  glaciere  of  St.  Georges  in  January  than 
in  July,  the  reason  probably  being  that  nature  had  not 
yet  restored  the  supply  of  that  material  removed  for 
culinary  purposes  during  the  summer  and  autumn,  or 
melted  away  by  the  heat  of  the  sun.  Much  of  the 
columnar  ice  in  these  caves  was  more  like  alabaster 
than  ice,  an  appearance  due  to  the  great  admixture  of 
air.     The  microscope  and  the  air-pump  displayed  this 


A  WINTEK  EXCURSION  IN  SWITZERLAND   137 

character  of  the  ice  well,  and  there  was  found  to  be  an 
unusual  amount  of  nitrogen  in  the  cells.  The  ther- 
mometer and  hygrometer  gave  the  same  results  in  the 
glaciere  of  St.  Livres  (the  one  visited  from  Biere)  as  in 
that  near  St.  Georges. 


138 


A   NIGHT    WITH  A   SALMON  > 

Nb  creature  of  land,  air,  or  water,  is  subjected  to  so 
much  legislation  as  the  salmon.  If  a  bird  happens  to 
be  hatched  a  grouse,  or  a  blackcock,  or  a  partridge,  he 
knows  that  wherever  he  may  go  within  the  limits  of 
these  islands,  man  can  make  no  lawful  raid  upon  him 
and  his  when  once  December  10  and  February  1  are 
respectively  passed.  His  life  only  becomes  a  burden  to 
him  on  August  12  or  20,  or  September  1,  as  the  case 
may  be.  He  knows  when  to  make  himself  scarce,  and 
when  it  is  safe  to  appear.  Moreover,  he  knows  the  one 
lawful  weapon  which  man  may  wield  against  him,  and 
so  long  as  he  keeps  out  of  the  way  of  guns  his  life  is 
safe  from  human  pursuit.  If  he  is  deprived  of  life  by 
unsportsmanlike  means,  he  has  the  keen  sympathy  of 
his  most  energetic  persecutors,  and  a  fair  chance  of  a 
dirge  from  a  bench  of  magistrates.  The  salmon  has  a 
different  tale  to  tell.  His  periods  of  freedom  from  care 
are  of  so  complicated  a  character  that  he  is  seldom  at 
his  ease.     During  the  spring  and  summer  months  there 

•  Oomhill  Magazine^  July  1869. 


A  NiaHT  WITH  A  SALMON  139 

are  certain  hours  in  the  week  when  he  may  not  be 
lawfully  circumvented  with  the  net ;  but  man  has  had 
the  arrangement  of  these  periods,  and  has  meanly 
selected  the  hours  which  nature  and  revelation  alike 
point  out  as  holidays  even  for  the  victim  of  human 
sport.  The  meagre  months  of  continuous  safety  from 
lawful  human  foe  are  spent  in  the  toilsome  task  of 
working  up  stream,  and  depositing  the  seed  of  future 
generations  of  the  Salmo  fario.  Even  this  one  oasis  in 
the  poor  creature's  life  is  of  the  nature  of  a  shifting 
mirage.  It  depends  entirely  on  the  river  he  chooses 
to  run  up,  though,  as  a  fact,  each  fish  knows  his  river 
and  keeps  to  it.  According  as  it  is  the  Tay  or  the  Tweed, 
he  is  absolutely  free  to  devote  himself  to  domestic  cares 
from  October  10  or  some  complicated  day  in  Novem- 
ber, and  becomes  safe  from  all  weapons  but  the  rod 
on  August  26  or  October  14.  For  six  or  seven  months 
of  each  year  he  is  exposed  to  vastly  more  than  one 
method  of  destruction.  Engines  of  the  net  kind  are  of 
various  descriptions,  one  more  fatal  than  another.  The 
common  sweep-net  is  at  least  as  fatal  to  the  salmon  as 
cholera  and  small-pox,  and  fevers  high  and  low,  all  put 
together,  to  the  lords  of  creation.  The  eyes  which 
guide  this  pen  have  seen  three  hundred  fine  fish  lying 
on  the  beach  as  the  spoil  of  a  pair  of  nets  at  one  fishing 
station,  in  four  hours  of  ebbing  tide,  the  other  tide  of 
the  day  yielding  another  three  hundred.  For  miles 
and  miles  up  many  rivers  the  sweep-net  is  going  from 
both  sides  at  once,  the  ^  shots '  dovetailing  in  the  most 


140  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

murderous  manner.  Only  fish  that  are  uncommonly 
deep,  either  as  regards  cunning  or  as  regards  position 
in  the  water,  can  hope  to  reach  the  upper  streams, 
where  peace  from  the  net  awaits  them,  and  unremitting 
persecution  from  the  rod.  The  stell-net  is  as  destruc- 
tive as  it  is  illegal,  and  is  worked  unscrupulously  by 
those  who  are  bound  to  see  the  law  obeyed.  Stake-nets 
are  in  all  respects  dreadful  engines.  The  hang- net  is 
the  poacher's  friend,  and  from  the  salmon's  point  of 
view  is  diabolical.  The  pot  and  the  basket  await  with 
hungry  jaws  the  sentimental  fish  that  amuses  himself 
by  jumping  up  waterfalls.  A  beneficent  legislature 
saves,  or  seeks  to  save,  the  salmon  from  perishing 
through  its  own  madness  when  a  light  is  blazed  on  the 
water ;  but  not  a  few  do  come  to  that  manner  of  un- 
timely end  each  year,  at  the  hands  of  blase  sportsmen 
anxious  to  ^  see  what  it  is  like,'  to  say  nothing  of  less 
distinguished  persons  with  whom  material  motives 
weigh. 

And  all  the  time,  while  the  passion  for  the  flesh 
and  blood  of  the  salmon  is  being  carried  out  to  the  full 
in  these  various  ways  of  violence,  a  steady  course  of 
underhand  assassination  is  going  on,  deceptions  of  the 
most  artful  and  stealthy  description  being  practised  to 
lure  the  unfortunate  fish  to  his  destruction.  Does  he 
love  to  dash  grandly  at  a  glimpse  of  rainbow  imprisoned 
in  the  water? — he  makes  his  dash,  and  finds  himself 
impaled  on  a  hidden  hook,  with  a  creature  possessed  of 
brains  at  the  other  end  of  a  hundred  yards  of  oiled  line. 


A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON  141 

dancing  in  horrid  ecstasy  to  the  tune  of  '  hooked  him 
at  last ! '  Is  he  more  quiet  and  sombre  in  his  tastes  ? — 
there  comes  stealing  across  the  clear  stream,  with  ever 
such  a  little  kick  and  jump  now  and  then,  a  soft-looking 
dark  creature,  with  the  most  piquante  bit  of  silver 
ornament  possible ;  and  the  same  ecstatic  dance  and 
shout  of  triumph  follow  his  plunge  at  the  enchanter. 
Does  he  like  his  little  bit  of  fish  now  and  then? — 
there  is  introduced  to  his  notice,  during  his  hungry- 
moments,  a  shy  little  creature  of  the  minnow  species, 
now  darting  from  him,  now  lazily  lingering,  lingering 
till  he  seizes  it  and  makes  it  his  own,  all  with  the  same 
result.  Nay,  for  salmon  so  degraded  as  to  love  the 
soft  and  juicy  lobworm,  there  are  found  anglers  so 
degraded  as  to  fix  such  a  reptile  on  a  hook,  and  there- 
with work  the  ruin  of  the  fish  that  forgets  the  funda- 
mental maxim  of  his  nobility.  And,  as  if  a  man  could 
not  do  harm  enough  with  one  rod  and  line,  which  a 
providential  arrangement  of  hands  has  made  the  full 
complement  of  his  offensive  armoury,  he  gets  him  a 
boat,  if  he  be  suitably  situated,  and  hangs  him  out 
astern  therefrom  three  rods,  each  with  its  line  and  lure. 
A  second  conspirator,  the  boatman,  tacks  quietly  across 
and  across  the  stream,  thus  drawing  the  lines  through 
the  water,  while  the  first  sits  cat-like  in  the  stem. 
Suddenly  a  reel  rattles,  the  boatman  shouts  a  husky 
'  therrum,'  and  the  contest  between  brains  and  instinct 
commences,  sometimes,  it  is  true,  to  the  discomfiture  of 
the  brains.     The  number  of  rods  renders  it  possible  to 


142  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

pander  to  so  many  tastes  at  once,  that  the  salmon  falls 
a  frequent  prey  to  this  great  sport  of  '  harling.' 

The  circumstances  most  favourable  to  harling  are  a 
broad  expanse  of  water  and  a  quick  current.  There  is 
then  sufficient  room  for  manoeuvring  the  boat,  while  the 
current  keeps  the  lines  always  in  new  water,  as  the 
boat  drops  slowly  down.  A  romantic  river,  boiling  over 
shelves  of  rocks  and  rushing  between  boulders  like  a 
mill-race,  is  no  place  for  a  boat  to  work ;  and  as  salmon 
rise  well  to  the  fly  under  such  picturesque  circum- 
stances, it  is  as  unnecessary  as  it  is  impossible  to  resort 
to  the  device  of  harling.  But  when  the  mountain  burn 
has  become  a  stream,  and  a  dozen  such  have  been 
gathered  into  a  loch,  and  the  loch  has  given  birth  to  a 
river,  and  the  river  has  become  an  estuary  three- 
quarters  of  a  mile  broad,  with  a  rise  and  fall  of  twelve 
or  fourteen  vertical  feet  of  tide,  it  is  of  no  use  to  cast  a 
fly.  It  has  been  held,  indeed,  up  to  very  modem  times, 
that  salmon  are  here  entirely  safe  from  the  rod ;  but 
recent  experiments  have  gone  far  to  explode  this 
opinion.  Harling  has  been  found  to  answer  very  well 
under  such  circumstances,  and  it  is  better  to  take  fish 
by  harling  than  not  to  take  them  at  all,  though  that 
manner  of  sport  is  decried  by  fly-fishers  whose  lines  are 
cast  in  other  waters.  Now,  a  good  deal  of  nonsense  is 
talked  about  fly-fishing.  There  is  an  idea  abroad  in 
the  world  that  it  is  a  most  graceful  art,  requiring  much 
skill  if  it  is  to  be  practised  with  success.  And  the  idea 
is  sound,  so  far  as  really  good  fly-fishing  and  distin- 


A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON  143 

guished  success  are  concerned.  But  salmon  are  killed 
often  enough  by  gentlemen,  and  by  ladies  too,  who 
have  a  very  flail-like  style  of  hurling  a  fly,  and  can 
certainly  claim  no  superiority  of  skill  over  the  scientific 
harler.  Rough  measures  will  take  a  fish  determined  on 
being  taken,  a  state  of  mind  in  which  a  good  many 
salmon  find  themselves  one  time  or  another.  This 
present  writer  served  his  novitiate  in  a  boat,  with  a  rod 
more  like  a  hop-pole  than  a  fly-rod,  with  which  sturdy 
instrument  some  ten  or  twelve  yards  of  strong  cord  got 
itself  painfully  thrown  out,  a  length  speedily  increased 
by  the  strength  of  the  current.  This  process,  repeated 
half-a-dozen  times,  secured  a  clean  fish  in  half  an  hour, 
— '  casting,  not  harling,'  as  the  captor  informed  his 
friends  with  a  careful  pride.  When  once  a  fish  is 
hooked  in  fair  water,  in  that  secure  manner  in  which  a 
salmon  carries  through  the  business  of  hooking  himself 
when  he  is  in  earnest,  a  little  judicious  assistance  from 
the  keeper  will  bring  him  in  due  time  to  the  gaff". 

The  value  of  salmon,  either  as  a  means  of  sport  or 
as  an  article  of  food,  depends  very  much  on  the  part  of 
the  river  where  he  is  taken.  If  he  is  hooked  near  the 
tidal  waters,  he  is  usually  full  of  vigour  for  sport,  and 
in  thorough  condition  for  the  table,  fighting  hard,  and 
shining  like  silver.  If  he  is  hooked  in  the  higher 
waters,  unless  he  be  a  fresh  run  fish,  with  sea  spirits 
and  sea  food  still  invigorating  him,  he  is  comparatively 
an  ignoble  prey.  Towards  the  end  of  the  season,  men 
on  the  higher  waters  scarcely  find  a  gafi"  necessary.    By 


144  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

the  time  a  fish  has  *got  that  length'  he  is  a  lazy 
creature,  with  skin  as  red  as  a  soldier ;  so  that  it  has 
been  said,  not  without  wit,  that  salmon  travel  better  by- 
land  than  by  water.  It  would  doubtless  be  a  great 
satisfaction  to  owners  of  higher  waters  if  they  could 
persuade  fish  to  come  up  to  them  in  good  condition ; 
and  as  this  is  impossible,  they  are  at  daggers  drawn 
with  the  lower  proprietors  and  their  nets.  They 
cannot,  with  any  decent  show  of  patience,  endure  to 
see  fish  taken  out  of  the  tidal  and  lower  waters  by  the 
hundred,  which  would,  in  the  course  of  nature,  have 
run  up  to  them,  arriving,  of  course,  as  '  red  fallows,' 
and  therefore  not  nearly  so  choice  for  food  as  when  they 
are  torn  flashing  like  burnished  silver  from  the  arms  of 
the  tide.  Legislation  in  the  direction  of  some  sort  of 
arrangement  between  the  upper  and  lower  proprietors 
is  constantly  being  tinkered  at,  but  the  principle  on 
which  Parliament  interferes  is  not  very  clear.  Young 
fish  must  of  course  be  protected,  and  breeding  fish  not 
wantonly  destroyed.  But  so  long  as  the  public  con- 
venience is  not  violated  by  an  undue  destruction  of 
salmon,  resulting  in  a  deficient  supply  of  that  luxurious 
food,  the  public  may  fairly  be  satisfied  ;  for  it  is  idle  to 
talk  of  bringing  salmon  down  to  the  price  of  cod  in  a 
seaport  town.  So  long,  then,  as  the  rentals  of  food- 
producing  rivers  do  not  fall  off,  it  is  rather  too  bad  that 
the  time  of  Parliament  should  be  wasted  purely  in  the 
interests  of  sport.  The  upper  proprietors,  however,  are 
so  powerful  a  body  throughout  the  kingdom,  that  they 


A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON  145 

are  able  to  influence  the  councils  of  the  nation,  and 
seriously  to  affect  the  supply  of  salmon  for  the  market. 
A  moor  lets  so  much  better  if  good  salmon-fishing  can 
be  advertised  with  it. 

But  at  this  rate  we  shall  never  get  to  our  night  with 
the  salmon.     To  do  so  we  must  transport  ourselves  to 
that  part  of  the  Tay  where  the  Earn  joins  its  waters 
with  the  larger  stream,  and  the  estuary  proper  com- 
mences.    Up   to   the  year  of   grace   1867,   no  single 
salmon  or  sea-trout,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  had 
ever  been  taken  here  by  means  of  rod  and  line.     After 
the   season  for  net-fishing  closed,  leaving  five  or  six 
weeks  for  the  sporting  season,  when  only  the  rod  is 
lawful,  and  salmon  is  no  longer  an  article  of  sale,  the 
waters  of  the  estuary  became  each  year  valueless  to 
their  proprietors.     The  upper  owners,  far  away  above 
the  tide-way,  revelled  in  their  sport  with  the  fly  and  the 
minnow  ;  but  those  lower  down  had  the  aggravation  of 
seeing  their  waters  teeming  with  huge  fish,  in  admi- 
rable condition,  leaping  and  gambolling  in  all  directions 
— '  warping,'  to  be  technical — without  the  possibility  of 
taking  one.     The  impossibility  lay  in  the  force  of  tra- 
ditional laws  of  nature.     It  was  an  accepted  fact  that 
no  salmon  would  take  a  fly  or  a  minnow  in  waters 
where  the  vertical  rise  of  the  tide  amounts  to  twelve  or 
fourteen  feet.      The  lower  orders  of  the  Scotch,  with 
all  their  good  qualities,  can  scarcely  be  called  an  ex- 
perimental race ;  and  so  it  had  come  to  pass,  that  every 
one  engaged  in  the  fishing  works  held  fast  the  tradition 

L 


146  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

that  no  fish  could  be  taken  by  the  rod  in  this  fine 
stretch  of  water,  three-quarters  of  a  mile  across  at  high 
tide. 

At  length,  however,  it  was  tried,  and  with  unex- 
pected success.  Day  after  day  the  water  was  paraded 
by  a  boat,  across  and  across,  with  three  rods  and  lines 
hanging  out  astern,  and  day  by  day  sea-trout  and 
whitling  (the  grilse  of  the  sea-trout)  came  to  report 
themselves  satisfied  with  the  arrangements  made.  The 
salmon  for  some  time  held  aloof,  but  after  a  time  they, 
too,  came  in.  By  degrees  a  more  extended  series  of 
experiments  was  tried.  The  tastes  of  the  fish  were 
pandered  to  by  appeals  at  odd  times  of  the  tide.  It 
was  found  that  the  sea-trout  kind  took  best  from  three 
hours  to  an  hour  before  low  water ;  then  a  relaxation 
of  their  efforts  was  observed.  When  low  water  was 
imminent,  so  that  the  stream  became  very  slight,  and 
the  minnows  would  scarcely  spin,  the  flies  not  working 
at  all,  then  it  was  that  a  strong  and  steady  pull  would 
come,  followed  by  the  joyful  music  of  the  reel,  and  an 
exciting  fight  with  a  salmon.  If  no  such  agreeable 
interruption  came,  patience  succeeded  expectation,  and 
weariness  patience,  until  the  tide  had  well  begun  to 
flow  in  again,  when  a  few  whitling  would  rise.  After 
an  hour  and  a  half  of  tide,  the  oars  were  plied  in  vain. 
It  cost  much  time  and  perseverance  to  arrive  at  some 
experimental  law  respecting  the  best  states  of  wind  and 
weather,  and  a  somewhat  elaborate  system  of  lures 
grew  up.     The  fly  was  practically  soon  abandoned,  not 


A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON  147 

rising  one  to  six  as  compared  with  the  minnow,  and 
that  one  never  more  than  a  sea-trout.  On  bright  days 
a  blue  phantom,  on  dark  days  a  brown  ;  higher  up  the 
channel  a  smaller  minnow  than  lower  down ;  a  clear 
day  infinitely  better  than  a  dull ;  the  less  wind  the 
better,  so  that  it  is  not  actually  calm  ;  a  fair  speed  for 
trout,  a  mere  crawl  for  salmon  ;  the  deeper  the  water 
the  better  the  fish :  such  were  some  of  the  results  of 
innumerable  experiments.  But  the  lesson,  enforced 
most  frequently  and  with  most  painful  emphasis,  was 
this : — Never  buy  phantom  minnows  that  have  not 
W.B.  stamped  on  the  spinner.  They  are  only  imita- 
tions of  the  Aberdeen  phantom,  and  may  be  sound. ^ 

The  ^  Night  with  a  Salmon '  was  the  last  night  but 
one  of  the  rod  season  of  1868.  It  was  high  tide  about 
ten  in  the  morning,  and  operations  were  commenced  at 
half-past  eleven,  an  earlier  stage  of  the  tide  than  had 
yet  been  experimented  on.  For  nearly  an  hour  nothing 
was  done,  and  it  was  determined  that  either  the  tide 
was  as  yet  too  large,  or  there  were  seals  in  the  water, 
the  latter  explanation  one  that  had  already  proved  true 
too  frequently.  To  any  one  alive  to  the  beauties  of 
nature,  and  the  charms  of  local  antiquities,  the  scene 
was  sufficiently  attractive  to  call  the  thoughts  from  pis- 
catorial failure.  On  all  sides  save  one,  where  the  sea 
lay,  the  view  was  closed  by  hills  of  renown,  Moncrieife 
and  Kinnoull,  the  Ochills  with  far  Craig  Rossie,  and 

>  This  was  twenty-six  years  ago.     I  know,  alas,  very  little  of 
phantom  minnows  now. 

L  2 


148  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

the  Sidlaws,  with  peaked  Dunsinane.  The  sides  of  the 
hills  and  the  level  plain  were  dotted  thick  with  castles, 
recalling  many  a  stirring  history.  The  castle  of  Kin- 
fauns  *  stood  out  boldly,  on  its  new  site,  representing  a 
long  line  of  the  turbulent  barons  of  Gray ;  the  old  site 
nearer  the  river  being  now  unmarked  by  any  sign  of 
the  times  when  Sir  Patrick  Charteris  held  there  his 
abode — teste  the  Fair  Maid  of  Perth — and  aided  the 
burly  burghers  of  the  Fair  City.  Nearer  still,  and 
close  on  the  water's  edge,  were  the  well-kept  ruins  of 
Elcho,  a  nunnery  once,  then  a  castle,  whence  the 
Wemyss  takes  now  his  second  title.  Through  an 
opening  in  the  hills  lay  the  massive  keep  of  Balthayock, 
where  the  much-acquiring  Blairs  were  wont  to  guard  a 
pass  into  the  Carse  of  Gowrie.  And  at  equal  distances 
along  the  hills,  stationed  on  similar  duty,  lay  the  stout 
towers  of  Evelick  and  Kinnaird,  the  former  indeed  only 
poetically  present,  save  to  the  eye  that  could  see  through 
an  intervening  buttress  of  rock.  Close  at  hand  were 
the  woods  of  Errol,  the  cradle  of  the  *  handsome  Hays,' 
Errol,  Kinnoull,  Tweeddale,  and  other  noble  branches, 
with  Falcon-stones  in  all  parts  of  the  neighbourhood, 
in  honour  of  the  traditional  founding  of  the  family. 
Further  away  was  old  Megginch,^  an  appanage  of  Errol 
once,  and  bearing  still  on  its  walls  the  Hay  name ;  in 
another  direction  grey  Pitfour,^  where  the  handsome 
blood  still  burgeons  in  the  female  line,  and  Seggieden,^ 

•  Margaret,  Baroness  Gray.         ^  John  Drummond,  Esq. 
'  Sir  John  Stewart  Richardson,  Bart. 

*  Colonel  Drummond  Hay. 


A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON  149 

another  Hay,  with  its  carpets  of  flowers.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  river,  Abernethy  shewed  its  strange  round 
tower,  Ouldee  cell,  prison,  campanile,  granary,  place  of 
refuge,  beacon,  watch-tower,  palace,  idol  temple,  or 
whatever  the  most  correct  view  of  its  original  purpose 
may  be.  On  the  hills  beyond,  the  ruins  of  Balvaird 
shewed  the  old  home  of  the  'Stormont  Murray s.  Near 
it  wound  the  road  whence  it  is  believed,  in  spite  of  some 
physical  difficulties,  that  the  Eomans  looked  down  upon 
the  Inch  of  Perth  and  the  flowing  Tay,  and  uttered,  in 
their  impudence,  the  doubtful  compliment,  ^Ecce  alterum 
Tiherim,  ecce  alterum  Campum  Martis  I '  Or,  lastly,  to 
recross  the  Tay  and  look  further  afield,  the  towers  of 
Stuart-loving  Fingask  ^  might  be  seen,  nestling  under 
Dunsinane ;  and  the  lordly  pile  of  Eossie  ^  with  its  chapel 
and  its  chimes  will  close  the  list,  unless,  indeed,  we 
prefer  to  wind  up  with  the  chimneys  of  smoky  Dundee. 
At  the  mouth  of  the  Earn  the  captain  of  the  ex- 
pedition warns  the  boatman  not  to  go  too  near  the 
sandbanks,  and  as  the  boat  obediently  turns  upwards, 
the  middle  rod  shews  a  drag,  and  the  line  begins  to 
draw  ofi*  lazily.  '  Bottom,  Jimmy !  You  always  go  too 
near  there ! '  '  That's  no  bottom,'  Jimmy  declares  ; 
and  as  the  owner  of  the  rod  is  proceeding  to  put  things 
in  order  again,  there  comes  a  swish  which  nearly  carries 
off*  rod  and  man  and  all,  while  the  reel  makes  mad 
music,  eminently  suggestive  of  a  rapid  end  to  the  run. 
'  Back,  Jimmy  !  back  her  !  We  can't  stop  him.'  And 
'  Sir  P.  M.  Threipland,  Bart.  ^  George,  Lord  Kinnaird. 


160  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

as  Jimmy  backs,  the  non-combatant  member  of  the 
party  reels  up  the  other  two  lines  and  gets  the  rods 
out  of  harm's  way.  The  fish  is  clearly  a  monster.  He 
plays  the  boat,  rather  than  the  boat  him.  He  careers 
about  the  middle  channel  of  the  Tay  for  a  time,  the 
boat  cautiously  following,  and  then  he  goes  into  shal- 
lower water,  on  banks  dry  at  low  tide,  where  experience 
has  taught  us  that  more  than  one  dangerous  stake 
exists.  Then  he  rushes  up  Earn,  and  to  follow  him 
against  the  powerful  stream  is  no  easy  task  for  Jimmy's 
stout  arms.  He  has  taken  the  lightest  of  the  three 
lines,  a  mere  makeshift  composed  of  two  trout-lines, 
seventy  and  fifty  yards  long,  and  this  puts  no  drag 
upon  his  movements.  Nor  dare  we  let  him  get  far  from 
the  boat,  for  the  splice  has  not  been  tried,  and  the  rings 
are  small.  However,  we  congratulate  ourselves  on 
hooking  him  so  early  in  the  tide,  as  we  can  afford  to 
spend  an  hour  upon  him  and  yet  have  the  whole  usual 
time  of  fishing  left.  But  an  hour  sees  him  no  nearer 
the  gaff.  He  keeps  up  a  succession  of  long  steady 
runs,  followed  promptly  by  the  boat,  and  only  once 
getting  more  than  seventy  yards  away  so  as  to  shew 
the  splice.  In  an  hour  and  a  half  we  have  drifted  down 
into  the  neighbourhood  of  a  very  threatening  danger, 
the  poles  and  ropes  of  a  row  of  sperling-nets,^  standing 
now  on  a  sandbank  in  five  or  six  feet  of  water,  each 


*  Sperling  or  Sparling :  Fr.  6perlan :  the  common  English  smelt. 
They  are  taken  in  large  fixed  purse-nets,  and  are  left  high  and  dry 
in  the  nets  at  low  water. 


A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON  151 

rope  collecting  a  flotilla  of  surface  rubbish.  Once  among 
these  the  fish  must  be  lost,  and  not  only  does  he  shew 
a  strong  inclination  to  go  there,  but  we  have  learned 
that  he  will  go  where  he  chooses.  After  ten  minutes 
of  anxious  manoeuvring,  he  cruises  across  towards  the 
north  shore  of  the  Tay,  in  the  direction  of  a  famous 
landing-place  for  salmon,  a  firm  beach  with  a  short  spit 
of  gravel  running  out  into  the  river.  The  third  man 
in  the  boat  has  never  engaged  in  salmon-fishing  before, 
and  finding  two  hours'  '  play '  without  one  sight  of  the 
fish  something  too  much  for  his  young  philosophy,  he 
hails  with  delight  our  prophecies  of  speedy  success. 
Suddenly,  '  The  line's  slack !  he's  off"!  No,  he  isn't,  he's 
turned  ! '  and  while  the  slack  line  is  reeled  in  with  all 
imaginable  speed,  Jimmy  gets  the  boat  round  just  in 
time  for  the  most  furious  bolt  southward  we  have 
yet  had.  The  third  man's  hopes  of  shore  are  rudely 
blighted. 

Meanwhile,  the  tide  has  drifted  us  down  well  below 
the  sperling-nets  on  the  south  shore,  and  that  danger 
is  past.  But  the  afiair  is  becoming  serious,  for  we  have 
arrived  at  the  head  of  Mugdrum  Island,  which  divides 
the  Tay  into  a  North  and  South  deep,  and  once  in  the 
South  deep,  a  rapid  run  of  tide  and  current  will  quickly 
carry  us  down  to  Newburgh,  and  then  there  will  be  a 
stormy  estuary  two  or  three  miles  across  to  be  faced. 
Mugdrum  can  scarcely  be  called  a  romantic  name.  It 
is  a  corruption  of  Magridin,  the  name  of  a  Scottish 
saint ;  another  form  of  which  is  Magruder,  not  much 


152  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

more  romantic ;  while  yet  another  form  lingers  in  the 
denomination  of  a  parish  in  Fife,  Eccles-Magirdie, 
Ecclesia-Magirdle.  The  fish  at  first  shews  signs  of 
taking  the  North  deep,  to  the  great  confusion  of  Jimmy, 
who  reports  the  bottom  *  gey  foul,'  as  no  nets  have  been 
worked  in  that  cliannel  for  years.  He  makes,  however, 
for  the  South  deep,  and  in  the  neck  of  the  channel, 
some  thirty  feet  deep,  with  the  water  running  like  a  mill- 
race,  he  takes  it  into  his  head  to  sulk  for  the  first  time. 
There  are  half-a-dozen  stones  in  the  boat,  a  part  of  the 
mystery  of  harling,  and  these  are  dropped  at  intervals 
on  to  the  spot  where  the  fish  is  calculated  to  be.  One 
only  of  them  takes  effect,  and,  after  a  rush  of  a  few 
moments,  he  returns  to  his  position,  the  patience  of  the 
third  man  becoming  of  a  somewhat  stormy  character. 
After  a  quarter  of  an  hour  he  bolts  suddenly,  and  makes 
for  a, nice  little  sandy  beach  on  the  island,  where  we 
could  land  very  conveniently  and  fight  him  from  the 
shore ;  but  finding  himself  in  shallow  water  he  doesn't 
like  it,  and  sails  off  down  the  channel  seawards,  with 
current  and  tide  and  all  in  his  favour.  Down  he  goes 
almost  without  a  pause,  till  we  find  ourselves  under 
Mugdrum  House,  the  harbour  and  shipping  of  New- 
burgh  close  at  hand,  and  the  wild  expanse  of  estuary 
beyond.  At  another  time  the  scene  would  have  had 
associations  and  attractions  sufficient  for  us.  On 
Mugdrum  House  there  hangs  the  escutcheon  of  the  last 
male  Hay  of  Leyes,  a  line  of  twenty-three  direct  de- 
scents from  father  to  son,  the  first  Hay  of  Leyes  being 


A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON  153 

himself  the  sixth  in  direct  descent  from  William  de 
Haya,  Pincerna  Domini  Regis.  Newburgh  was  of  old 
the  capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Fife.  It  still  retains 
Macduff's  cross,  where  any  of  Macduff's  kind  might 
find  a  sanctuary,  sure  by  royal  ordinance,  in  case  he 
had  killed  a  man  by  any  means  short  of  diabolically 
premeditated  murder.  Macduff's  kind  were  a  likely 
sort  of  people  to  keep  the  sanctuary  warm.  The  ram- 
pant reformers  of  Perth  smashed  the  cross  as  a  joke 
while  paying  a  visit  of  deformation  to  the  Abbey  of 
Lindores.  The  remains  of  that  famous  abbey  are  now 
in  sight  from  the  boat,  the  ground-plan  wonderfully 
complete,  and  the  whole  cared  for  to  the  utmost  by  the 
owners  and  occupiers  of  the  land.  There  is  to  be  found 
in  stone  effigy  the  winged  horse,  the  cognisance  of  the 
last  Earl  of  Douglas,  whom  his  king  sent  to  die  a  monk 
at  Lindores  ('  he  who  may  no  better  be,  a  monk  must 
be ') .  There,  too,  is  the  delicate  skull  of  the  young 
Duke  of  Rothsay,  the  wisdom-teeth  half  cut,  taken 
from  a  poor  slab-tomb  south  of  the  high  altar,  where 
those  who  brought  his  murdered  body  from  Falkland 
had  hurriedlj^  laid  him.  There,  too,  are  the  coffins  of 
the  infant  sons  of  the  founder,  David  Earl  of  Hunting- 
don, whose  daughters,  had  these  little  babies  lived,  would 
never  have  handed  down  the  ancient  throne  of  Scotland 
to  the  Anglo-Norman  barons  of  Sheriff-Hutton  and  Bar- 
nard Castle,  the  Bruce  and  the  Balliol.  And,  hanging 
over  the  abbey,  is  a  famous  crag,  famous  in  its  history 
as  striking  in  its  outline — no  other  than  the  Clatchart 


154  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

Craig,  where  Wallace  outwitted  the  English  ;  the  neigh- 
bouring woods  being  descendants  of  the  great  forest 
of  Black  Earnside,  the  scene  of  a  great  battle  of  his. 
Further  down  the  river,  on  a  bluff  headland,  stands  the 
ruined  Castle  of  Bambreich,  or  Ballinbreich,  a  former 
home  of  the  Dukes  of  Rothes.  A  son  of  that  house, 
Norman  Leslie,  became  Lord  Lindores  at  the  Dissolu- 
tion;  but  the  title  came  to  trouble,  as  coronets  gilt 
with  monastic  gold  have  been  wont  to  do. 

It  is  now  half-past  three  o'clock,  and  we  are  rapidly- 
approaching  Newburgh.  A  council  of  war  determines 
that,  at  all  hazards,  we  must  get  to  shore ;  and,  as  if  in 
furtherance  of  our  determination,  the  fish  makes  to- 
wards the  island.  We  push  on,  parallel  with  him,  and 
regardless  of  the  splice,  until  the  boat  actually  touches 
the  bottom  for  a  moment,  imparting  to  the  third  man 
the  most  pleasurable  sensation  he  has  yet  felt.  The 
next  moment  we  are  rowing  hard  out  into  mid  channel, 
for  a  sudden  rush  has  run  all  the  line  off  the  reel  but 
ten  yards  or  so.  That  is  our  first  and  last  contact  with 
the  shore  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  He  still 
makes  seawards ;  but  we  observe  with  much  satisfaction 
that  the  tide  shews  signs  of  turning,  and  we  hope  soon 
to  find  ourselves  moving  homewards.  The  change  of 
tide  seems  to  make  the  fish  frantic.  We  are  never  still 
for  half  a  minute,  and  never  cease  wondering  what  his 
size  must  be  if  his  strength  is  so  enormous  and  so  un- 
tiring. Finally,  he  decides  on  going  up  with  the  tide, 
and  he  goes  at  so  merry  a  rate  that  the  third  man  is 


A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON  155 

encouraged  to  bring  out  three  sandwiches  of  potted 
grouse — our  whole  supply  of  food — and  eats  his  share. 
A  strong  cold  wind  from  the  sea,  and  a  heavy  fall  of 
rain,  soon  come  to  damp  his  satisfaction,  and  he  is 
reduced  to  the  verge  of  despair.  Double  himself  up  as 
he  will,  his  waterproof  will  not  cover  the  whole  of  him ; 
and  as  he  must  sacrifice  either  his  legs  or  his  head,  he 
elects  to  save  the  legs.  The  waves  become  embarrass- 
ing, and  the  boat  is  no  longer  easy  to  manage.  A  new 
fiend  enters  the  fish,  and  makes  him  play  the  maddest 
pranks  imaginable.  We  have  for  some  time  discussed 
the  probability  of  his  being  a  strong  fish  hooked  foul, 
which  would  account  -for  some  part  of  his  power ;  but 
just  when  the  waves  are  at  the  highest  and  the  boat  is 
blowing  up  the  river  close  upon  the  fish,  out  he  springs 
two  feet  into  the  air,  a  monster  as  large  as  a  well-grown 
boy,  with  the  line  leading  fair  up  to  his  snout.  '  Never 
land  that  fellow  with  a  couple  of  trout-lines,  or  any 
other  line,'  is  the  fisherman's  verdict ;  and  as  if  to  con- 
firm it  a  cry  comes  the  next  minute,  '  The  line  has 
parted  ! '  Sure  enough  one  strand  has  gone,  owing  to 
the  constant  friction  of  the  wet  line  running  through 
the  rings  for  so  many  hours,  and  within  twenty  yards 
of  the  end  of  the  line  there  is  an  ugly  place  two  inches 
long,  with  only  two  strands  out  of  three  remaining. 
There  is  no  longer  a  moment's  safety  unless  that  flaw 
is  kept  on  the  reel ;  and  the  necessity  of  pressing  close 
on  the  fish  leads  Jimmy  such  a  life  as  he  will  probably 
not  forget.     We  are  hungry  and  cold  and  somewhat 


166  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

wet ;  it  is  growing  very  dusk,  and  if  we  could  not  land 
him  with  120  yards  of  line,  how  can  we  with  twenty? 
We  have  caught  a  Tartar  indeed.  The  non-combatant 
determines  to  go  overboard  and  swim  to  land ;  but  the 
fish  seems  inclined  to  save  him  the  trouble,  and  once 
more  makes  for  the  favourite  north  shore.  We  near 
the  haven,  are  within  fifteen  yards  of  land.  Our  friend 
gets  on  to  the  seat  to  jump,  but  waits  for  one  weak 
moment  to  have  a  shorter  swim,  when  off  goes  the  fish, 
and  ofi*  we  go,  too,  into  mid-channel.  The  disappointed 
man  resigns  himself,  for  the  Tay,  with  a  strong  tide 
half  up,  is  no  pleasant  bath  in  the  twilight  of  a  rough 
October  day. 

And  now  night  comes  on  in  earnest.  It  is  half-past 
six,  and  all  but  dark,  before  we  reach  the  pier  whence 
we  started  seven  hours  before.  Here  there  are  several 
boats  kept,  and  we  shout  with  the  utmost  confidence 
for  *  Ko-bairt '  to  come  and  take  our  friend  ashore. 
Alas !  all  the  boats  are  far  up  in  the  reeds,  and  will  not 
be  available  for  two  or  three  hours  yet,  so  on  we  go 
into  the  deepening  darkness.  The  clock  at  home 
strikes  seven,  and  we  hear  our  passenger  groaning  over 
the  fact  that  they  are  just  going  in  to  dinner.  Lights 
peep  out  on  the  hillsides  and  in  the  plain,  and  a  gather- 
ing cluster  of  bright  points  at  the  water's  edge  reminds 
us  that  we  are  nearing  Inchyra,  where  we  shall  cer- 
tainly get  a  boat  to  come  out  to  us.  We  shout  in 
concert,  '  Boat ! ' — '  Boo-o-o-at '  the  hills  all  round  re- 
turn, with  echoes  marvellously  prolonged ;  but  there  is 


A  NiaHT  WITH  A  SALMON  167 

no  other  reply.  The  whole  village  must  have  heard — 
probably  takes  it  for  a  hoax.  Again  and  again  we  cry, 
now  in  harmony,  now  in  discord ;  and  anything  more 
horrible  than  a  loud  body  of  discord  borne  on  repeating 
echoes  it  is  difficult  to  conceive.  At  length  a  measured 
sound  of  oars  is  heard,  and  a  black  pirate-like  boat 
comes  down  upon  us.  We  state  our  need.  Can  he 
take  this  gentleman  down  to  the  pier,  and  bring  us 
back  some  food  ?  '  Na ! '  And  that  is  all  he  will 
vouchsafe  to  say  as  he  sheers  off  again.  Soon,  however, 
a  more  Christian  boat  appears,  and  with  many  com- 
plicated manoeuvres,  to  keep  the  line  clear  of  the  boats 
in  the  dark,  we  tranship  our  friend  about  eight  o'clock, 
loaded  with  injunctions  to  send  off  food  and  a  light. 
The  light  would  be  of  the  greatest  service,  for  a  frozen 
finger  and  thumb  are  not  sufficiently  certain  indicators 
of  the  passage  of  the  frayed  portion  of  the  line  from  the 
reel ;  and  as  the  fish  has  never  ceased  to  rush  from  one 
side  to  the  other,  frequently  passing  sheer  under  the 
boat,  and  requiring  the  utmost  care  to  keep  the  line 
clear  of  the  oars,  we  think  almost  more  of  the  coming 
lantern  than  of  the  sorely  needed  food.  It  is  an  hour 
before  the  boat  returns,  with  an  excellent  lantern,  a 
candle  and  a  half,  a  bottle  of  whisky,  and  cakes  and 
cheese  enough  for  a  week.  Before  setting  to  work 
upon  the  food  we  attempt  to  put  in  execution  a  plan 
we  have  long  thought  of  and  carefully  discussed.  A 
spare  rod,  short  and  stiff,  is  laid  across  the  seats  of  the 
boat,  with  the  reel  all  clear,  and  a  good  salmon-line  on, 


158  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

with  five  or  six  yards  drawn  through  the  rings.  We  wait 
till  the  fish  is  quiet  for  a  moment  or  two  under  the  boat, 
and,  taking  gently  hold  of  the  line  he  is  on,  pass  a  loop 
of  it  through  the  loop  at  the  end  of  the  salmon-line. 
As  if  he  divined  our  intention,  off  he  goes  at  once, 
running  the  flaw  off  the  reel,  and  costing  us  some  effort 
to  catch  him  up  again.  This  is  repeated  two  or  three 
times.  At  last  we  get  the  loop  through,  get  a  good 
knot  tied,  snap  the  old  line  above  the  knot,  and  there 
is  our  friend  careering  away  at  the  end  of  a  hundred 
yards  of  strong  salmon-line,  with  some  seven  or  eight 
yards  only  of  the  thinner  line.  When  we  examine  the 
now  innocuous  flaw,  we  find  it  is  seven  inches  long, 
and  half  of  one  of  the  remaining  strands  is  frayed 
through.  The  only  thing  now  to  be  avoided  is  coming 
into  very  close  contact  with  the  fish,  as  the  new  loop 
will  not  run  easily  through  the  rings.  Unfortunately, 
the  light  in  the  boat  seems  to  attract  him  to  us,  for  he 
does  little  else  than  rush  from  one  side  of  the  boat  to 
the  other,  and  we  are  obliged  to  take  the  oars  in  and 
let  her  drift.  For  a  few  moments,  we  propose  to  hang 
the  light  over  the  stem,  and  gaff  him  when  he  comes 
up  to  it ;  but  that  method  is  at  once  rejected  as  unfair 
to  so  noble  a  foe.  Jimmy,  however,  will  not  abandon 
it.  '  I  should  be  ashamed  all  my  life,'  the  fisherman 
declares.  *  There's  never  a  body  need  know,'  Jimmy 
replies.  'I  should  know,'  was  the  moral  rejoinder. 
^  Deed  I  wudna  tell.' 

Time  passes  on  as  we  drift  slowly  up  the  river  to- 


A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON  159 

wards  Elcho.  Ten  o'clock  strikes,  and  we  determine 
to  wait  till  dawn,  and  then  land  and  try  conclusions 
with  the  monster  that  has  had  us  fast  for  ten  hours. 
The  tide  begins  to  turn,  and  Jimmy  utters  gloomy 
forebodings  of  our  voyage  down  to  the  sea  in  the  dark. 
The  fish  feels  the  change  of  tide,  and  becomes  more 
demoniacal  than  ever.  For  half  an  hour  he  is  in  one 
incessant  flurry,  and  at  last,  for  the  first  time,  he  rises 
to  the  surface,  and  through  the  dark  night  we  can  hear 
and  see  the  huge  splashes  he  makes  as  he  rolls  and 
beats  the  water.  He  must  be  near  done,  Jimmy 
thinks.  As  he  is  speaking  the  line  comes  slack.  He's 
bolting  towards  the  boat,  and  we  reel  up  with  the 
utmost  rapidity.  We  reel  on;  but  no  sign  of  resis- 
tance. Up  comes  the  minnow,  minus  the  tail  hook. 
Jimmy  rows  home  without  a  word ;  and  neither  he  nor 
the  fisherman  will  ever  get  over  it. 

Note. — A  large  fish  was  taken  in  the  nets  at  Newburgh  the 
next  year,  which  was  popularly  recognised  as  the  fish  of  the 
above  account.  It  had  a  mark  just  where  I  saw  the  tail  hook 
of  the  minnow  when  the  fish  shewed  itself  once  in  the  strong 
water  above  Newburgh;  and  a  peculiarity  of  form  of  the 
shoulder,  which  I  then  noticed,  was  seen  in  the  great  fish  taken 
in  the  nets.  Correspondence  with  Mr.  Frank  Buckland,  who 
took  a  cast  of  the  fish,  appeared  to  establish  the  identity  of  the 
two.  It  was  the  largest  salmon  ever  known  to  be  taken,  weighing 
74  lbs.  as  weighed  at  Newburgh,  and  70  lbs.  in  London  the  next 
day.  Fish  are  usually  found  not  to  decrease,  but  to  increase 
largely  in  weight  after  their  capture.  My  boatman  on  Loch 
Freuchie  once  told  me,  a  propos  of  a  *  4  lb.  trout '  caught  by  a 
Stirling  gentleman  in  the  loch,  that  the  fish  must  have  grown 
2|  lbs.  between  that  and  Stirling. 


160  A  NIGHT  WITH  A  SALMON 

There  is  a  cast  of  the  big  sahnon  in  the  South  Kensington 
Museum.  A  photograph  shewing  its  size  in  relation  to  a  large 
wheelbarrow  and  the  rudder  of  a  coble  is  reproduced  at  p.  138 ; 
the  photographer  found  it  impossible  to  prop  the  fish  up  in  such 
a  fashion  as  to  shew  its  remarkable  depth  of  side. 


161 


TEE  CHATEAU  IN  THE  ARDENNES^ 

They  told  me  of  a  chateau,  in  the  heart  of  the  Ardennes, 
A  pension  kept  charmingly  by  two  young  chatelaines ; 
They   told    me    of    some    English    people    who    had 

summered  there, 
On  next  to  nothing  for  the  best  and  most  abundant 

fare; 
They   could   not   tell   me  where  it  was,   or  who  the 

chatelaines. 
But  they  knew  it  was  a  chateau,  in  the  heart  of  the 

Ardennes. 

The  heart  of  the  Ardennes  is  large,  if  it  be  somewhat 

cold; 
And  chateaux  are  in  plenty  there,  the  home  of  barons 

bold; 
The  ruins  that  were  homes  in  ages  past,  that  is  to  say, 
And   not   at  all   like  pensions  where  English  people 

stay; 
But  all  the  information  that  they  really  could  obtain 
Was   this, — it   was   a   chateau,   in   the    heart   of  the 

Ardennes. 

1  Spa,  1880, 

M 


162      THE  CHATEAU  IN  THE  ARDENNES 

They  botK  were  very  anxious  to  be  able  to  make  out 
The  way  to  reach  the  chateau  they  had  heard  so  much 

about ; 
'Twould  be  so  charming  after  all  the  tours  that  they 

had  been, 
And  after  all  the  gay  and  noisy  places  they  had  seen, 
To  go  and  live  for  nothing,  far  from  all  the  haunts  of 

men, 
At  a  veritable  chateau,  in  the  heart  of  the  Ardennes. 

They    left.      No    more    they    d^jeuner*d    at   healthy 

Sauveni6re, 
No  more  they  meant  to  dejeuner  at  distant  Geronst^re ; 
No  more  abused  the  Ninth  for  all  the  tuneless  things 

they  played, 
No  more   encored   La   ronde   qui  passe   in   Leopold's 

arcade. 
They  left ;  and  I  was  lonely  for  a  day  or  two ;  and 

then, 
I  went  to  find  the  chateau  in  the  heart  of  the  Ardennes. 

There  met  me,  on  the  way  to  join  the  luggage  at  the 

gare, 
About  the  most  experienced  of  travellers  *  that  are, 
The  '  Art '  himself  '  of  Travel ' ;  and,  though  not  bom 

yesterday, 
I  listened  to  the  guileful  tale  he  told  me  by  the  way ; 

'  Mr.  Francis  Galton. 


THE  CHATEAU  IN  THE  ARDENNES      163 

For  he  told  me  with  descriptive  tongue,  as  clever  as  his 

pen, 
What  sounded  like  the  chateau  in  the  heart  of  the 

Ardennes. 


He  told  me  of  the  demoiselles  who  kept  a  charming 

place ; 
Of  English  people,  how  they  praised  its  cleanliness  and 

space ; 
He  told  me  of  a  brother,  too,  who  helped  his  sisters 

dear. 
And  how  for  almost  nothing  they  gave  most  delightful 

cheer. 
It  was  not  called  a  chateau  by  his  friend,  he  said ;  but 

then. 
It  really  was  a  pension  in  the  heart  of  the  Ardennes. 


A  Belgian  lady  staying  in  the  Britannique  hotel 

Had  told  him.     That  was  where  and   how  my  ladies 

learned  as  well. 
It  clearly  was  the  very  place.     I  took  the  train  at  one ; 
Then  drove  across  the  bitter  moors ;  and  when  the  day 

was  done. 
We  pulled  up  in  a  dirty  little  town  amid  the  rain, 
And  o'er  the  door  was  painted  H. — not  chateau — DES 

ARDENNES. 

M  2 


164  THE   CHATEAU  IN  THE  AEDENNES 

A  huggennugger  maid  appears,  with  pail  and  brush  in 

hand, 
And  makes  a  sound  or  two  which  she   perhaps  may 

understand ; 
And  then  there  comes  another,  with  a  wart  upon  her 

nose, 
And  she  must  be,  as  I  at  length  unwillingly  suppose, 
At  least  the  mother  of  the  pair  of  blooming  chatelaines 
Who  keep  the  charming  chateau  in  the  heart  of  the 

Ardennes. 


But  if  a  pair  they  ever  were,  the  other's  not  alive. 
And  this  one  is  the  only  one,  and  she  is  fifby-five ; 
The  *  brother  '  is  a  page  in  blouse,  who  won't  do  what 

he's  bid, 
The  people  call   him  Jacquot,  but  with  madame  he's 

stupide ! 
We've    thus    disposed   of    brother   and    of   blooming 

chatelaines  ; 
But   what    about   the   chateau,   in   the   heart   of  the 

Ardennes  ? 


I'm  ushered  in;  and  there,  I  find,  are  fellow  victims 

three. 
Prepared  to  eat  their   soujyer,  fixed   for  sept  heures  et 

demie ; 


THE  CHATEAU  IN  THE  ARDENNES      165 

A  monsieur  with  a  napkin  tucked  beneath  his  double 

chin, 
A  mother,  and  a  giggling  girl  for  ever  on  the  grin. 
Then  knives  begin  to  shovel  in  the  meat  and  beans, 

and  then 
I  feel  I'm  in  a  pension,  in  the  heart  of  the  Ardennes. 


The  mother  tells  of  glories  which  have  quite  possessed 

her  brains, 
The  salons  of  a  wealthy  fahricant  of  counterpanes ; 
Discusses  is  it  proper  for  a  Verificateur 
To  ask  to  dance  the  daughter  of  a  public  Inspecteur. 
It  sounds  perhaps  a  little  insignificant,  but  then 
We're   very   near   a    chateau,   in    the    heart    of    the 

Ardennes. 


Monsieur  gets  purple  over  non  !  and  shouts  it  six  times 

o'er  ; 
And  when  he  feels  affirmative,  a  dozen  si's  or  more  ; 
Elisa  nips  her  mother  when  I  don't  take  haricots. 
Which  smell  so  strong  of  onion  I'm  glad  to  see  them 

go. 
And  this  within  a  yard  or  two,  not  more  than  eight  or 

ten, 
Of  a  most   undoubted   chateau,  in   the  heart   of  the 

Ardennes. 


166  THE   CHAtEAU   in  the  ARDENNES 

The  morning  breaks  in  beauty,  and  romantic  dreams 

take  flight, 
As  through  the  open  window  streams  the   sun's  fast 

gathering  light, 
Romantic  dreams  of  sylvan  courts,  and  eke  of  banished 

dukes, 
And    pensive    Jaqueses    meditating,   by    meandering 

brooks. 
I  rise  and  seek  the  window,  feeling  sure  that  there  and 

then 
I  shall  realise  the  chateau,  in  the  heart  of  the  Ardennes. 

The  noises  that  the  pigs  are  making  really  pass  belief ; 
The  cocks  are  louder   still,  to   shut  the  window's  no 

relief; 
And,  ah!   for  dreams  of  sylvan  glades  so  sweet  and 

fresh  and  pure. 
At  every  door  are  soaking  heaps  of  excellent  manure. 
But  what  are  trifles  such  as  these,  when  close  within 

my  ken, 
There  stands  at  last  the  chateau,  in  the  heart  of  the 

Ardennes  ? 

The  guide-book  says  ninth  century,  but  carved  in  stone 

the  date 
Of  this  remaining  morsel  is  but  sixteen  twenty  eight ; 
It's  now  a  shop  for  carpet  slippers,  sweets  and  boots 

and  wool. 
And  madame  takes  a  room  in  it  when  her  hotel  is  full ; 


THE  CHATEAU  IN  THE  ARDENNES      167 

The  rest  was  all  fait  sauter,  not  by  Kevolution  men, 
But  to  build  a  new  Hotel  de  Ville,  in  the  heart  of  the 
Ardennes. 

The   meats   are  very  tender,  and  the   bedrooms  very 

good; 
Madame  is  very  pleasant,  and  there's  quite  sufficient 

food; 
The  coffee's  sometimes  perfect,  and  there  seem  to  be  no 

fleas; 
And  it  costs  you  very  little  by  the  day  at  Houffalize ; 
But  yet  I'm  not  at  all  inclined  to  go  and  see  again 
That  smelly  not  a  chateau,  in  the  heart  of  the  Ardennes. 


168 


THE  ENGADINE^ 

The  Engadine  has  been  written  about  so  often,  and 
from  so  many  points  of  view,  that  the  subject  might 
seem  to  be  exhausted.  But  there  is  one  vein  which 
has  not  been  sufficiently  worked,  if,  indeed,  it  has  been 
worked  at  all.  Some  of  the  Engadiners  of  old  time 
devoted  themselves  to  a  study  of  the  history  and  topo- 
graphy of  their  country.  The  modem  students  of  the 
history  of  Rhaetia  have  been  active  in  reprinting  the 
old  works,  and  printing  others  which  have  lain  long  in 
a  manuscript  form,  notably  the  Ehaetian  history  of 
Campellus,  or  Chiampel,  and  a  large  number  of  docu- 
ments from  among  the  archives  of  Chur.  By  this 
means  a  great  deal  of  valuable  information  has  been 
rendered  accessible.  An  additional  interest  has  thus 
been  given  to  the  bracing  valley  which  claims  to  have 
been  peopled  by  a  Latin-speaking  race,  and  to  have 
retained  their  language  in  the  Romauntsch  of  to-day. 

To  proceed  at  once  to  the  place  which  made  the 
modern  reputation  of  the  Engadine,  some  guide-books 
have  suggested  that  the  name  of  Pontresina  is  derived 
from  Ad  Pontem  Saracenum,  and  others  have  scoffed 

'  National  Review^  August  1883. 


THE  ENGADINE  169 

at  this  derivation.     The  Chur  archives  leave  no  doubt 
on  the  point,  so  far  as  the  use  of  that  as  the  Latin  name 
of  the  place  is  concerned.     Such  use  is  of  course  not 
a  proof  of  the  derivation  of  the  one  name  from  the 
other.      In    1291,    Caspar    and    Romedius   de   Ponte 
Sarraceno  make  over  to  Andreas  Planta  of  Zutz  all 
their  tithes  in  Zutz,  on  payment  of  eighty-four  pounds. 
Five  years  later,  Caspar  de  Ponte  Sarraceno  sells  to  the 
same  Andreas  four  lambs  yearly,  part  of  the  canons' 
tithes,  for  twenty-six  pounds.     Six  years  later  still,  the 
same  two  brothers  resign  into  the  hands  of  Bishop  Sifrid 
the  fee  of  Curtins  in  the  Fex  valley  (in  valle  Fedes,  the 
Feet-  or  Fex-Thal),  which  the  Bishop  grants  again  to 
one  of  the  Castelmurs,  a  family  famous  in  Bregaglia, 
taking  its  rise  from  the  Castle  of  Murum  on  the  lake  of 
Sils,  a  name  derived  from  a  much  more  ancient  place 
in  the  Val  Bregell  (Prse-gallia).     The  de  Ponte  Sarra- 
ceno or  von  Pontresina  family  were  evidently  going 
down  the  hill  in  the  thirteenth  century  as  the  Plantas 
rose,  taking  their  name  from  the  bear's  paw,  planta. 
Andreas  Planta,  it  may  be  remarked  parenthetically, 
was  at  this  time  buying  up  tithes  and  church  fees  in  all 
directions  ;  for  instance,  twenty-seven  fishes  a  year  from 
the  lake  of  St.   Moritz  from  Tobias  de  Cambescasco 
(Toby  of  Camogask)  for   three   pounds,  and   another 
twenty-seven  from  Peter  and  James  of  Camogask  for 
four  pounds. 

That  the  name  Pons  Saracenus  does  refer  to  the 
Saracens,  and  does  not  owe  its  form  to  some  accidental 


170  THE  ENGADINE 

coincidence,  may  be  argued  from  the  fact  that  the 
bishopric  of  Chur  suffered  greatly  at  the  hands  of  the 
Saracenic  invaders  who  so  grievously  troubled  that  part 
of  Europe.  Thus  in  940,  according  to  the  original 
document  still  existing  at  Chur,  King  Otho  I.  gave  to 
Bishop  Waldo  of  Chur,  to  alleviate  the  losses  inflicted 
by  the  Saracens,  the  church  of  Bludenz  and  St.  Martin's 
Church  in  Schams  (in  voile  Sexamnes).  The  latter  was 
to  go  after  Waldo's  death  to  the  convent  of  Katzis, 
represented  in  the  Latin,  no  doubt  in  accordance  with 
the  then  pronunciation  of  the  double  z,  as  Chazzes.  In 
955  the  same  Otho  recorded  in  a  document  not  now  to 
be  found  at  Chur,  that  he  had  himself  seen,  in  the 
course  of  his  journey  from  Italy,  evident  traces  of  the 
mischief  done  by  the  Saracens.  He  therefore  gave  to 
Bishop  Hartpert  as  some  compensation  his  demesne  of 
Zizers,  with  all  its  pertinents,  and  also  perpetual  freedom 
from  toll  for  the  Bishop's  vessel  on  lake  Walenstadt 
(in  lacu  riuano).  Lothar  had  remitted  the  toll  in  843, 
by  a  charter  now  to  be  seen  in  perfect  preservation  at 
Chur.  Otho's  gift,  by  the  way,  did  not  pass  unchal- 
lenged, for  Count  Arnold  von  Lenzburg  asserted  that 
the  property  in  question  belonged  to  his  church  of 
Schannis.  The  matter  was  investigated  at  Constanz  in 
972  before  Otho,  now  become  emperor,  a  jury  of  twelve 
or  more  men  of  the  district,  and  a  court  of  eleven  Counts 
and  Counts  Palatine  ;  the  verdict  was  in  favour  of  the 
Bishop. 

The  archives  at  Chur  abound  in  material  of  the 


THE  ENG-ADINE  171 

highest  interest  for  all  who  find  pleasure  in  the  province 
of  Rhaetia,  in  its  ancient  or  its  modern  guise.  Many 
travellers  will  remember  well  their  visit  to  the  quaint 
old  cathedral  church  of  Chur,  with  its  early  charters, 
reliquaries  by  Hibernian  gold-workers,  and  its  collection 
of  sculptured  stones  ranking  high  in  point  of  antiquity 
and  beauty  among  the  Christian  remains  in  Europe. 
Some  of  the  best  of  the  charters  are  displayed  in  the 
sacristy.  There  may  be  seen  the  long  and  narrow  and 
somewhat  infirm  characters  of  the  Caroline  charters, 
still  written  in  the  Merovingian  hand,  before  Alcuin's 
influence  reached  Chur.  Alcuin,  formerly  head  master 
of  the  Cathedral  school  of  York,  in  succession  to  Albert, 
cousin  of  the  King  and  Archbishop,  and  to  Ecgbert, 
brother  of  the  King  and  Archbishop,  and  afterwards 
Charlemagne's  right-hand  man,  honoured  the  Bishop 
with  several  letters,  having  made  his  acquaintance  on 
the  journey  to  or  from  Home  ;  but  no  one  who  knows 
Alcuin's  style  will  expect  that  anything  of  antiquarian 
interest  is  to  be  found  in  these  effusions.  One  of  them 
is  more  practical  than  most  of  his  letters,  inasmuch  as 
it  introduces  to  Bishop  Remedius  a  certain  merchant 
journeying  on  Alcuin's  account  to  Italy,  and  begs  that 
the  Bishop  will  let  him  off  all  tolls  in  passing  the 
mountains. 

Many  of  the  documents  in  the  archives  at  Chur 
relate  to  the  Engadine.  The  earliest,  or  one  of  the 
earliest,  is  a  gift  of  the  Church  of  Sins  to  the  presbyter 
Hartpert,   Henry   the    Fowler   being    the   giver,  and 


172  THE  ENGADINE 

Berthold  being  the  Count  of  the  Engadine.     But  the 
most  interesting  are  three  which  bear  date  January  22, 
1139,  whereby  the  Counts  of  Gamertingen  sell  their 
possessions  to  the  Bishops  of  Chur.     This  was  practically 
the  acquisition  of  the  lordship  of  the  Upper  Engadine, 
where  the  bishops  were   lords  till  the  people   bought 
their  freedom   in    1494,  the  Lower  Engadine  buying 
their  freedom  of  the  House  of  Austria  in  1652.      The 
boundaries  of  the  Gamertingen  possessions,  as  recited 
in  the  first  of  the  three  documents,  were  as  follows : 
To  the  east,  the  pons  alta,  now  Punt  auta,  still  the 
boundary  of  the  Upper  and  Lower  Engadine.     To  the 
north,    the   source   of  water   in   Fulpugnia,  of  which 
Professor  von  Mohr  remarks  that  no  one  can  tell  the 
site;    we   can  scarcely   be   wrong,    etymologically   or 
topographically,  in  placing  it  at  Palpugna,  close  by  the 
little  lake  of  Weissenstein  on  the  Albula  road,  from 
which  the  Albula  itself  flows.     To  the  south  the  water- 
course which  runs  into  the  lacxis  alhvs,  the  laig  or  lej 
alv  as  the  Romauntsch  people  call  it  still,  better  known 
by  its  Italian  name  of  logo  bianco,  at  the  summit  of  the 
Bemina  pass.     And  to  the  west,  the  water-course  of 
Campofare,  which  is  not  far  to  seek  now-a-days.     The 
possessions  included  the  church  of  St.  Peter  at  Samaden 
and  of  St.  Lucius  at  Zutz.     The  price  was  eight  hun- 
dred marks  of  silver  and  sixty  ounces  of  the  purest  gold. 
The  second  of  the  three  deeds  disposes  of  a  part  of  the 
Upper  Engadine  in  which  some  additional  members  of 
the    Count's   family   had   an   interest,   possessions   at 


THE  ENGADINE  173 

St.  Moritz  and  Schlatain,  for  two  hundred  marks  of 
silver.  The  third  gives  as  a  free  gift  to  St.  Mary  of 
Chur  the  family  property  at  Pontresina,  ad  pontem 
sarisinam  as  the  deed  has  it,  in  disregard  of  ordinary 
rules  of  gender,  a  disregard  which  the  modern  form  of 
the  name  has  stereotyped. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  first  mention  we  find  of 
an  Engadine  family  is  due  to  dishonesty.  There  is  a 
document  in  the  Bishop's  archives  at  Chur,  dated 
May  18,  1244,  by  which  Volkard,  the  bishop  who  built 
the  castle  of  Guardaval,  puts  Andreas  Planta  in  the 
place  of  Tobias  de  Ponte  Zarisino  as  Chancellor  of  the 
County  of  the  Upper  Engadine,  by  reason  of  the  mis- 
demeanour of  Tobias.  Von  Mohr  unkindly  puts  a 
note  to  this,  that  there  flourishes  still  at  Pontresina  the 
ancient  family  of  Saratz,  probably  descended  from  the 
de  Ponte  Zarisino.  The  late  President  of  Pontresina, 
and  landlord-owner  of  the  Grand  Hotel  Saratz,  was  not 
likely  to  feel  very  grateful  for  this  remark,  which  con- 
fuses, by  the  way,  a  gentile  and  a  local  name. 

Something  more  than  300  years  ago,  the  Engadiners 
were  made  the  subject  of  a  cruel  calumny.  In  the  year 
1550,  Sebastian  Mtinster,  the  illustrious  Professor  of 
Hebrew  in  the  academy  of  Basel,  published  his  cosmo- 
graphic  work,  printed  by  Heinrich  Petri.  He  described 
the  character  of  each  people,  as  well  as  the  country 
which  they  inhabited ;  and  he  was  in  some  cases  very 
frank.  Thus  of  the  Scots  he  said  that  they  were 
personally  dirty,  that  they  thought  themselves  better 


174  THE  ENGADINE 

than  other  people,  and  that  the  most  beggarly  Scot 
called  himself  cousin  to  the  king.  Of  the  Engadiners 
he  used  words  which  Chiampel  cannot  bring  himself  to 
repeat,  so  slanderous  and  insulting  were  they.  Another 
writer  is  quite  as  angry  but  was  less  discreet.  He 
quotes  the  words.  The  professor  said  in  his  Latin 
edition  that  the  race  of  men  in  the  Engadine  was 
rapax  et  furtis  dedita,  a  pack  of  thieves  and  robbers ; 
and  in  the  German  edition,  published  simultaneously, 
he  said  of  them,  sy  stud  gross&r  Diehen  dan  die  Zigyner. 
After  some  copies  had  been  sold,  Miinster  found  that 
the  statement  was  considered  likely  to  get  him  into 
trouble,  and  in  the  remaining  copies  the  words  were 
erased  with  pen  and  ink.  The  Engadiners  took  the 
statement  ill,  being  conscious  of  no  such  deserts.  They 
will,  no  doubt,  have  the  sympathy  of  all  who  have  paid 
bills  for  rooms  and  carriages  in  the  Upper  Engadine 
during  the  last  few  years.  John  Travers  of  Siis  and 
Balthasar  Planta  of  Zemetz,  who  were  among  the 
leading  men  in  the  lower  and  upper  valleys  respectively, 
were  sent  as  delegates  to  Basel  to  make  a  disturbance 
about  the  slander  upon  their  fair  fame.  They  arrived 
in  October  1554,  and  to  their  great  disappointment  they 
found  that  Miinster  was  dead.  They  endeavoured  to 
fix  the  responsibility  on  Petri,  the  publisher,  on  the 
ground  that  he  must  have  known  what  he  was  printing. 
But  Petri  got  ofif  by  an  argument  which  seems  to  have 
been  good  enough  for  those  times.  In  the  first  place, 
he  knew  better  than  to  take  the   trouble  of  reading 


THE  ENGADINE  175 

through  all  the  books  he  had  to  print ;  in  the  second 
place,  though  it  might  at  times  be  necessary  to  be 
careful,  with  so  famous  an  author  as  Miinster  he  should 
never  have  thought  of  examining  what  he  printed.  At 
length,  by  way  of  appeasing  the  wrath  of  the  Engadine, 
the  men  of  Basel  made  a  proposal  which  was  accepted. 
Two  tablets  were  prepared,  sealed  with  the  seal  of 
Basel,  to  be  preserved  in  the  archives  of  the  Lower  and 
Upper  Engadine,  setting  forth  that  Munster  was  entirely 
mistaken  in  describing  the  Engadiners  as  a  rapacious 
people,  and  in  asserting  that  they  were  bigger  thieves 
than  the  gipsies.  Thus  whitewashed,  with  characters 
guaranteed  by  the  seal  of  Basel,  Travers  and  Planta 
returned  joyful,  and  deposited  their  invaluable  docu- 
ments among  the  treasures  of  their  muniment  rooms. 

Chiampel,  as  we  have  seen,  could  not  bring  himself 
to  quote  the  scandalous  words.  Peter  de  Porta  gives 
the  text  of  the  whitewashing  document,  in  which  the 
words  quoted  above  are  found.  Their  account  some- 
what exaggerates  Miinster's  offence,  for  in  the  Latin 
editions  of  1550  and  1554  the  Engadiners  are  described 
as  bellicosam  gentem  sed  furacem.  In  1572  they  are 
hellicosam — of  that,  their  attitude  at  Basel  had  left  no 
doubt — and  no  longer  furacem.  The  German  was 
corrected  earlier,  for  in  1556  they  are  a  gut  streitbar 
Volchf  as  indeed  they  had  proved  themselves  to  be. 

It  was  discovered  in  the  course  of  time  that  ^  one  of 
great  name,  but  a  great  rascal,'  had  told  Munster  tales 
about  the  Engadine  which  Munster  had  believed.     The 


176  THE  ENGADINE 

contemporary  writers  spare  his  name.  He  was  one  of 
the  most  prominent  men  in  Rhaetia,  de  Porta  says. 
Probably  he  was  of  their  own  race,  and  they  felt  it  a 
little  awkward  to  answer  a  charge  of  rascality  against 
the  Engadiners  by  the  argument  that  the  Engadiner 
who  made  it  was  a  rascal.  Possibly  the  informant  had 
merely  travelled  through  the  Engadine,  and  communi- 
cated his  adventures  to  the  learned  professor;  for 
Chiampel  mentions  one  or  two  places  of  evil  report, 
which  might  not  unfairly  give  some  countenance  to  the 
idea  that  the  people  were  rascals.  Near  Siis,  his  own 
home,  was  a  place  which  had  been  cleared  by  the  in- 
dustry of  his  fellow-townsmen,  but  had  formerly  been 
covered  with  brushwood  and  stones,  where  *  thieves  and 
robbers  lurked  behind  trees  and  rocks.'  And  at  Zemetz, 
where  the  valley  narrows  so  much  that  there  is  not 
room  for  the  road  without  cutting  the  rock,  is  a  place 
called  Puntaglias,  once  very  unsafe  on  account  of  rob- 
bers. When  the  band  was  overcome  and  seized,  they 
confessed  to  having  robbed  many  travellers  and  thrown 
them  into  the  Inn.  Chiampel  does  not  say  that  any  of 
these  gentry  were  foreigners. 

The  Reformation  in  the  Engadine  was  brought 
about  by  a  series  of  local  struggles,  each  commune 
being  a  law  to  itself  and  reforming  or  remaining  un- 
reformed  according  to  the  decision  of  the  majority.  By 
good  fortune  one  of  the  main  actors  in  the  matter — no 
other  than  Ulric  Chiampel — was  engaged  upon  a  history 
of  Rhastia,  and  he  and  others  have  recorded  details,  such 


THE  ENGADINE  177 

as  perhaps  no  other  country  possesses,  of  the  change  of 
worship.     The    struggle  as  a  rule  centred  round  the 
images.     If  the  images  were  got  rid  of  by  fair  means 
or  by  foul,  the  Mass  went  and  the  preaching  came  in. 
The  means  were  oftener  foul  than  fair,  and  the  details 
are  usually  quaint.     At  Campfer — a  place  very  inno- 
cent now  of  anything  of  the  kind — there  was  a  celebrated 
image  of  St.  Eoche,  with  a  shrine  of  the  highest  sanc- 
tity.   One  winter's  night  three  men  passed  with  sleighs, 
and   the   last  "of  them,   being  very  strong  and  bold, 
dragged  down  the  huge  image,  fastened  it  to  the  tail  of 
his  sleigh,  and  dragged  it  multis  cum  cavillis  to  Cresta, 
near  Celerina,  which  last  place,  by  the  way,  mistaken 
tourists  will  persist  in  calling  Chelerina,  as  if  it  were 
Italian  and  not  Romauntsch.     The  Papists,  of  course, 
were  furious,  and  they  appealedto  the  ordinary  tribunal. 
The  people  of  Samaden,  and  other  prudent   persons, 
appeased  them  by  taking  care  that  the  image  was  put 
back  in  its  place  ;  but  no  one  attempted  to  disguise  the 
fact  that  Rochus,  though  restored,  was  male  habitus. 
It  was  only  for  one  day  that  he  recovered  his  position. 
Jachem  Muott  (James  Hill)  of  Celerina,  described  in 
the  record  as  St.  Paul  describes  the  Athenians  in  the 
English  version,  brought  the  family  food  to  the  restored 
Rochus  to  be  blessed.     He  unluckily  stumbled  at  the 
threshold  and  fell  with  the  food.     Forgetting  his  super- 
stition in  the  presence  of  so  great  a  catastrophe,  he 
uttered  unseemly  words  against  the  Saint.     The  priest 
rebuked  him  so  severely,  and  the  bystanders  jeered  him 


178  THE  ENGADINE 

SO  much,  that  he  forswore  Kochus  on  the  spot,  and  all 
other  saints,  and  joined  his  fellow-citizens  in  putting 
down  the  images  and  establishing  the  reformed  faith. 

At  Celerina,  which  place,  in  union  with  St.  Moritz, 
preserved  the  old  religion  longer  than  any  other  com- 
mune in  the  Upper  Engadine,  Johannes  Zacconius  was 
the  priest,  and  all  his  life  he  sang  the  Mass.  He  was 
a  highly  respectable  man,  in  proof  whereof  Chiampel 
adduces  the  fact  that  he  was  the  father  of  several  lawful 
children,  a  proof  of  respectability  which  the  Reformers 
on  their  part  were  from  the  first  very  ready  to  afford. 
The  assistant  priest  was  Thomas  a  Castris,  who  had 
been  brought  up  at  Zurich,  the  great  seminary  of  re- 
formed doctrines,  and  there  had  learned  better  things. 
He  made  use  of  his  access  to  the  images  at  Celerina  to 
make  cracks  in  them,  and  mutilate  them,  and  break 
them,  and  even  to  carry  them  off.  People  saw  what 
was  going  on,  but  nobody  dared  to  interfere,  for  the 
artful  Thomas,  who  had  not  learned  better  things  at 
Ziirich  for  nothing,  allowed  it  to  be  supposed  that  the 
images  were  being  maltreated  at  the  instigation  of 
Frederick  von  Salis  of  Samaden,  the  Commissary  of  the 
Upper  Engadine,  whose  relations  were  the  great  people 
of  Celerina.  Thus  the  way  was  paved  for  a  change,  so 
soon  as  the  highly  respectable  Zacconius  should  leave 
his  lawful  children  fatherless.  This  event  occurred  in 
1576,  when  Celerina  and  St.  Moritz  by  common  consent 
allowed  the  Mass  to  follow  their  ruined  images.  The 
dwellers  at  the  shrine  of  St.  Moritz,  we  are  informed, 


THE   ENGADINE  '  179 

had  for  some  time  been  inclined  to  hold  out  the  hand 
to  the  Gospel,  but  the  constant  influx  of  strangers  from 
Italy  to  drink  the  waters  kept  up  the  old  views.  They 
succeeded,  however,  in  ejecting  the  images  in  1570,  as 
a  preliminary  to  the  rejection  of  the  Mass.  This  was 
twenty  years  after  places  in  the  neighbourhood  had 
become  reformed. 

The  proceedings  at  Camogasc  did  not  follow  the 
same  order.  The  people  were  so  equally  divided  that 
they  could  not  decide  whether  to  elect  a  minister  of  the 
Word  or  a  priest  of  the  Mass.  Each  half  chose  for 
itself,  the  minister  being  Chiampel  the  historian,  the 
priest,  usually  a  Bergamasque.  The  services  were  per- 
formed on  alternate  Sundays ;  but  one  Sunday  both 
Chiampel  and  the  Bergamasque  appeared.  Neither 
would  give  way.  At  length  Chiampel  went  up  to  the 
priest  and  asked  him  what  the  Mass  was.  The  priest 
after  some  cross-questioning  was  constrained  to  say  that 
the  Mass  was  summum  scelus  et  injuria  contra  Christi 
meritum,  which  his  superiors  would  scarcely,  one  may 
suppose,  recognise  as  an  orthodox  statement.  Curiously 
enough  this  did  not  terminate  the  doubts  of  the  com- 
mune. Chiampel  migrated  to  Siis.  Five  years  later 
the  two  halves  agreed  that  they  should  take  as  their 
common  pastor  Christopher  Chioerngias,  who,  strange 
to  say,  had  been  informally  and  impartially  serving 
both  parties  without  shewing  his  hand,  and  should  leave 
it  to  him  to  decide  whether  Mass  should  be  sung  or 
not.    Nunquam  amplius  missificavit^  he  never  sang  Mass 

N  2 


180  THE  ENGADINE 

again.  The  unreformed  party  then  vehemently  re- 
gretted that  they  had  made  the  pact ;  for  along  with 
the  Mass  the  images  were  to  be  removed,  and  the 
church  of  Camogasc  possessed  statues  second  to  none 
in  beauty  and  elegance.  They  succeeded  in  preventing 
for  a  while  the  removal  of  the  images  ;  but  before  long 
a  com  merchant  offered  sixty  measures  of  com  for  them, 
valued  at  a  hundred  florins,  and  this  offer  converted  so 
many  that  the  reformers  had  all  but,  if  not  quite,  a 
majority.  The  numbers  being  so  nearly  equal  that 
neither  side  had  a  clear  preponderance,  they  went  to 
law  before  the  Courts  by  the  space  of  eight  months  at 
great  cost.  At  length  the  PapizanteSt  seeing  that  the 
decision  would  go  against  them  by  two  votes,  acted  the 
part  of  the  dog  in  the  manger.  They  changed  their 
cry,  and  said  they  would  rather  have  their  saints  burned 
than  sold.  The  Gospel  party  accepted  the  compromise, 
and  the  judge  made  a  solemn  order  that  on  that  or  the 
next  day  all  the  images  belonging  to  the  church  of 
Camogasc  should  be  *  handed  over  to  Vulcan.'  The 
Gospel  party  made  the  pyre  and  kept  it  fed  with  fuel, 
while  the  others  kept  jealous  guard  outside  the  ring 
lest  anything  of  value  should  be  abstracted,  which 
might  be  sold  and  so  '  yield  an  offering  to  Bacchus  or 
to  Ceres.' 

At  Zernetz  there  were  three  churches.  One  of  these, 
the  Church  of  Roven,  has  since  disappeared,  but  its 
large  bell  is  in  one  of  the  remaining  churches,  and  is 
still  known  as  il  sain  (signum)  da  Raven.     One  night 


THE  ElSaADINE  181 

in  October,  1552,  the  statues  in  these  churches  were 
cut  down  and  foully  damaged,  and  all  the  furniture  for 
Mass  was  torn  or  cut  to  pieces  or  removed.  The  next 
morning  the  excitement  was  intense.  The  bells  were 
rung  and  the  people  assembled.  No  one  had  done  it. 
What  was  to  be  done  ?  The  Parochus,  who  had  so  far 
held  a  mean  between  the  two  parties,  but  had  continued 
to  sing  Mass,  decided  that  as  the  images  had  gone  the 
Mass  might  go  too,  and  it  went  accordingly. 

At  Siis,  Chiampel's  family  played  a  prominent  part 
in  Reformation  matters.  A  daughter  was  born  to  him 
in  his  absence,  and  the  infant  seemed  about  to  die. 
Who  was  to  baptise  it  ?  The  grandfather,  Caspar,  had 
to  arrange  the  affair,  and  his  social  relations  with  the 
ecclesiastics  of  Siis  were  of  such  a  nature  as  to  cause 
some  complications.  He  altogether  refused  to  receive 
the  sacred  dew  from  midwives,  and  there  remained 
only  the  priests  and  the  Parochus.  He  would  not  re- 
ceive it  from  the  priests,  for  he  was  not  on  speaking 
terms  with  them.  Least  of  all  would  he  receive  it 
from  the  Parochus,  for  the  Parochus  and  he  were  under 
bonds  to  keep  the  peace  towards  each  other,  in  con- 
sequence of  differences  which  had  come  to  a  certain 
head.  He  therefore  baptised  the  child  himself,  naming 
it  Anna,  and  then  it  died.  Thereupon  the  Parochus 
and  others  of  Caspar's  enemies,  who  seem  to  have  been 
numerous,  made  a  great  uproar.  The  bell  was  rung 
and  an  assembly  collected.  Either  Caspar  had  allowed 
the  child  to  die  without  proper  baptism,  or,  if  the  bap- 


182  THE  ENGADINE 

tism  was  valid,  Caspar  had  become  the  compater  of  his 
own  son  and  daughter-in-law,  a  thing  unheard  of, 
abominable.  If  divorce  followed  upon  spiritual  cog- 
nition, a  wretch  such  as  Caspar,  unworthy  of  the  light 
of  day  and  of  the  nature  of  things,  must  be  altogether 
put  out  of  the  way.  In  pursuance  of  this  determination 
the  people  drew  their  swords,  the  Parochus  meanwhile 
throwing  cold  water  on  their  wrath,  as  Petrus  de  Porta 
ironically  relates,  though,  after  all,  the  recollection  of 
the  bond  may  have  made  him  earnest  against  actual 
violence.  Caspar  got  himself  into  a  comer  of  the 
market-place  of  Slis,  and  there  intrenched  himself, 
making  such  good  play  with  his  sword  that  he  kept  off 
the  parson  and  all  the  people  till  help  came.  From 
this  arose  the  disputation  in  the  church  at  Sus,  famous 
indeed,  but  less  famous  than  the  disputation  of  Ilanz 
eleven  years  before.  The  subject  was  women's  baptism. 
The  discussion  lasted  for  seven  days,  and  was  so  eager 
that  the  disputants  would  scarce  take  time  to  dine ;  ate, 
in  fact,  at  mid-day,  parce  rapideque.  At  supper,  de 
Porta  takes  unnecessary  pains  to  say,  they  made  up  for 
it,  peiisahctnt.  The  judges  decided  that  in  case  of  great 
necessity  any  one  might  baptise.  Many  of  the  Enga- 
diners  retained  the  opposite  view,  and  rebaptised  under 
such  circumstances,  whence  they  have  sometimes  been 
described  in  history  as  Anabaptists,  and  in  one  veracious 
record  as  '  Antibaptists.'  As  the  result  of  the  great 
disputation  at  Ilanz  to  which  reference  has  been  made, 
the  moderator  Sebastian  Hoffineister,  a  man  of  trans- 


THE  ENGADINE  183 

parent  impartiality,  declared  that  his  joy  and  wonder 
were  almost  equal :  joy,  that  on  the  Evangelical  side 
were  so  many  pious,  modest,  and  learned  ministers ; 
wonder,  that  on  the  other  side  were  so  many  stupid, 
old,  ignorant,  and  audacious  priests. 

Pontresina  was  the  first  commune  in  the  Upper 
Engadine  to  embrace  the  new  faith.  Vergerius,  for- 
merly Bishop  of  Justinopolis,  was  resting  at  the  house 
of  the  president  of  the  village  after  the  fatigues  of  the 
Bemina,  at  the  time  when  the  election  of  a  minister 
was  at  hand.  He  heard  one  member  of  the  commune 
after  another  discussing  the  matter  with  the  president, 
and  at  length  he  began  to  speak  of  the  new  views  and 
to  expound  the  Evangel.  The  president  was  a  man  of 
a  liberal  turn  of  mind,  and  it  occurred  to  him  that 
Pontresina  might  as  well  have  a  chance  of  hearing 
what  was  going  on  in  the  world, — audiemus  quid  italus 
iste  novus  nobis  dicturus  sit.  He  spoke  to  such  good 
effect  that  the  next  scene  presented  by  history  is  a 
procession  from  the  church  to  the  high  bridge,  over 
which  the  images  were  thrown  into  the  seething  depths 
below.  It  may  be  noted  here  that  the  interesting  old 
church  of  San  Gian,  near  Pontresina,  was  used  in  1623 
by  the  fugitive  Protestants  from  the  Valteline.  An 
Italian  sermon  preached  before  them  by  Eampo  of  Zutz 
is  still  in  existence  in  manuscript. 

There  are  in  the  Engadine,  as  in  most  parts  of  the 
world,  creatures  not  pleasant  to  fall  in  with.  Among 
them  may  be  reckoned — though  they  are  very  seldom 


184  THE  ENGADINE 

seen — ^the  Vipera  chersea  and  the  Kreuz-otter ;  of 
wluch  last  Theobald  comfortingly  observes  that  though 
it  is  said  to  spring  at  people  it  does  not.  If  it  does 
not,  it  is  an  unworthy  representative  of  its  fore-elders. 
The  Engadine  and  the  neighbouring  mountains  have 
been  much  troubled  by  monsters  of  the  serpent  kind, 
with  and  without  wings,  all  apparently  able  to  spring 
in  a  disagreeable  and  dangerous  manner.  An  early 
writer  employs  the  d  priori  method  in  speaking  of  the 
existence  of  dragons  in  the  Grisons:  *Le  Pais  des 
Grisons  est  si  plein  de  montagnes  et  de  Cavernes,  qu'il 
seroit  6tonnant  qu'il  ne  s'y  trouvat  pas  de  dragons.' 
Those  who  are  not  satisfied  with  this,  will  no  doubt 
yield  to  the  argument  from  inspiration,  whether 
historical  or  poetic,  as  employed  by  the  Jesuit  Kircher 
to  prove  dragons  in  general.  None  can  doubt,  he  says 
in  his  best  Latin,  save  those  who  contradict  holy  scrip- 
ture ;  for  in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Daniel  is  open 
mention  of  Bel,  a  dragon  worshipped  with  divine 
honours  by  the  Babylonians,  and  in  the  Psalms  it  is 
said  '  Ye  dragons  and  all  deeps.'  If  uninspired  history 
is  of  any  value  as  evidence,  the  case  is  clear  in  favour 
of  dragons.  Jean  Fabritius  investigated  the  history  of 
a  dragon  which  appeared  in  the  Grisons  in  his  time, 
and  he  wrote  to  Henry  Bullinger  (Sept.  18,  1559)  to 
announce  that  he  had  received  the  assurances  of  a 
most  trustworthy  man  on  the  subject.  This  was  the 
less  surprising  to  him,  because  thirty  years  before  a 
countryman  had  shot  in  that  neighbourhood  a  worm  of 


THE  ENGADINE  186 

prodigious  size,  sunning  itself  on  a  rock.  Its  blood 
was  so  venomous,  and  the  poison  was  so  subtle,  that  a 
gust  of  wind  blowing  across  the  blood  towards  him 
caused  him  to  lose  his  sight,  and  his  body  swelled  so 
much  that  his  life  was  despaired  of.  Peter  von  Juvalta, 
pfarrer  of  Stul,  near  Bergiin  on  the  Albula  route, 
writes  (Oct.  29,  1702)  that  in  August  1696,  Barthelmy 
Alegre  was  driving  his  cows  to  the  alp  of  Foppatsch 
(or  Joppatsch,  for  the  old  Dutch  account  impartially 
spells  it  both  ways)  near  Stul,  when  he  came  upon  a 
creature  lying  in  the  mouth  of  a  great  hole.  It  was 
two  ells  long,  had  a  cat's  head,  long  red  hair,  flashing 
eyes,  a  mark  like  a  white  collar  round  its  neck,  feet  like 
the  fins  of  a  fish  and  covered  with  scales,  a  serpent's 
tongue,  and  a  forked  tail.  Barthelmy  not  unnaturally 
made  off,  and  he  succeeded  in  getting  onto  a  rock  so 
steep  that  the  creature  could  not  follow.  From  this 
vantage  ground  he  shot  at  it.  It  came  at  him  like  an 
arrow,  and  all  but  reached  him,  but  at  length  he 
managed  to  kill  it  with  stones.  Three  days  later, 
when  he  returned,  the  body  was  decomposed.  The 
inhabitants  of  the  district  asserted  that  dragons  of  this 
kind  were  often  seen  on  Foppatsch  and  on  the  opposite 
alp  of  Utgeis,  which  must  in  those  days  have  been 
interesting  places. 

Chiampel,  the  Reformer  and  historian,  says  that  his 
maternal  grandfather,  Martin  Massol,  surnamed  Baloc, 
saw  at  the  foot  of  the  Julier  an  enormous  and  horrible 
serpent.     He  fell  ill  of  it,  and  lost  all  his  hair,  and  all 


186  THE  ENGADINE 

the  skin  which  was  not  covered  by  clothing  when  he 
saw  the  beast.  In  the  cleft  through  which  the  Inn 
passes  after  escaping  from  the  lake  of  St.  Moritz,  there 
is  a  hole  which  used  to  house  a  dragon  or  worm.  In 
Chiam pel's  time  a  trustworthy  man,  John  Mallet,  died 
of  the  sight  of  this  worm.  From  the  same  historian  we 
leam  that  the  little  lake  of  Alpiglias,  near  Siis,*  was 
possessed  of  unenviable  notoriety  as  the  abode  of  a 
dragon.  The  relative  of  a  Laviner  named  Bonorand 
had  seen  it  rise  with  fearful  roaring  out  of  the  lake. 
One  Johann  Branca,  of  Guarda,  covered  the  surface  of 
the  water  with  leaves  and  branches  of  trees,  and  thus 
forced  the  reptile  to  leave  the  lake,  which  it  did  in  a 
furious  storm  of  wind.  It  swam  down  the  Inn  to 
Innsbruck,  and  there,  not  without  much  danger  to  the 
people,  it  was  killed.  After  this  we  may  agree  with 
Kircher,  that  there  is  no  one  tarn  perfrictce  frontis  as 
not  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  Swiss  dragons.  To 
make  assurance  doubly  sure  he  gives  a  picture  of  one, 
which  the  landamman  of  Soleure,  who  had  seen  them 
often,  drew  for  him  from  his  own  experience.  It  is  a 
dreadful  scaly  creature  with  wings  and  claws.  For 
scientific  readers  he  gives  an  explanation  of  the  origin 
of  such  compound  animals,  based  on  observation.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  suppose  that  careful  scientific  observation 
is  a  thing  only  of  to-day.     They  are  always  found,  he 

'  There  is  a  Piz  Arpiglia  near  Zemetz  and  Siis,  and  an  Alp 
Alpiglia  near  Zuz.  Chiampel  knew  of  the  ambiguity,  and  remarked 
that  he  meant  Sus  and  not  Zuz  (i.  82). 


THE  ENGADINE  187 

points  out,  in  regions  inhabited  by  large  birds  of  prey. 
These  birds  carry  off  to  the  neighbourhood  of  their  nests 
many  more  carcases  of  animals  than  they  and  their 
young  can  devour,  and  the  consequence  is  that  car- 
cases of  diverse  creatures  lie  and  decay  together. 
Each  decaying  carcase  having  in  itself — such  is  his 
simple  postulate — the  seed  of  regeneration,  the  seeds 
of  all  the  carcases  become  commingled,  and  hybrids 
more  or  less  horrible  are  the  result. 

Less  problematical  than  the  dragons  of  the  Enga- 
dine  are  its  bears.  The  Upper  Engadine  is  too  open 
for  such  animals  to  maintain  a  lodgment,  and  it  is 
most  likely  that  any  bears  seen  there  are  visitors  from 
Italy.  A  calf  was  eaten  by  bears  at  Sils  Maria  in  the 
summer  of  1874,  but  the  inhabitants  asserted  that  the 
culprits  were  Italians.  Now  that  arms  of  precision  are 
in  the  hands  of  the  natives,  any  bears  that  shew  them- 
selves in  the  open  have  a  bad  time ;  but  the  valley  is 
full  of  traditions  of  a  period  when  the  balance  was 
more  even,  and  bears  were  a  recognised  and  constant 
danger.  La  Presiira,  near  Siis,  was  the  scene  of  a 
famous  encounter  between  a  woodman  and  a  bear,  in 
the  course  of  which  the  man,  Duri  Beta  of  Lavin 
(Lavinium,  the  Engadiners  say),  thrust  his  left  hand, 
wrapped  in  his  coat,  between  the  jaws  of  the  bear,  and 
with  the  right  killed  the  beast  with  blows  of  his 
axe.  In  the  same  neighbourhood  is  a  field  called  al 
houf  giall,  '  to  the  dun  ox.'  This  is  in  memory  of  a 
fight  between  a  bear  and  an  ox,  in  which  the  latter 


188  THE  ENGADINE 

killed  his  antagonist  by  pinning  him  to  a  tree  with 
his  horns. 

A  member  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  who  seems 
to  have  had  his  eyes  and  ears  very  wide  open  indeed,  if 
one  may  judge  by  his  '  Alpine  Sketches '  published  in 
1814,  relates  that  in  his  time  the  bulls  and  bears  had 
a  regular  appointed  rendezvous,  and  always  fought  till 
one  or  the  other  fell.  A  bull  which  had  once  pursued  a 
bear  from  its  pasturage  was  nowhere  to  be  found ;  but 
after  a  search  of  three  days  it  was  discovered  im- 
movable, pressing  against  a  rock  its  enemy  long  since 
dead  and  putrid.  The  animal  had  made  such  efforts 
that  his  hoofs  were  driven  several  feet  into  the  ground. 
With  any  less  sound  guarantee  than  that  of  a  member 
of  the  University  of  Oxford,  the  length  of  the  bull's  legs 
might  be  called  in  question. 

There  are  traditions  of  encounters  with  wolves  in 
the  streets  of  towns  in  the  Engadine.  Thus  in  January 
1536,  a  date  which  speaks  of  a  severe  winter,  a  wolf 
seized  the  grandson  of  Padrutt  Perini  in  the  street  of 
Madulein  (Mediolanurriy  they  say),  when  Juliot  of 
Milan  came  up  and  after  a  struggle  killed  the  beast 
with  his  swoi'd.  Boy  and  man,  however,  died  raving 
mad  from  their  wounds  a  few  days  after. 

Notwithstanding  the  advantage  which  the  possession 
of  heavy  rifles  gives,  the  Engadiners  still  consider  an 
encounter  with  a  bear  a  very  serious  matter.  Some 
years  ago  a  number  of  the  inhabitants  of  Zemetz 
sallied  forth  for  a  hunt  with  the  utmost  determination 


THE   ENGADINE 


189 


and  bravery,  and  they  were  fortunate  enough  to  find 
a  bear.  Having  found  him,  they  did  not  like  his 
looks,  and  they  put  into  active  exercise  that  best  part 
of  valour  which  is  known  as  discretion.  The  following 
verses  did  honour  to  the  expedition,  in  somewhat 
Italiajiised  Romauntsch : — 


UNA  GHATSCHA  AL  UORS 

Un  proverbi  antic  e  bel 
A  tuots  cognit,  suggerescha, 
Cha  del  Uors  vender  la  pell 
Mg  nun  sto  un  memm'  in  prescha, 
Ma  spetter  da  fer  marcbo 
Cur  cha  I'Uors  ais  schluppetto. 

Quaist  pi  over  b'  a  que  chi  pera 
A  Zernez  eir'  incontscliaint, 
Quels  Tregants  sUn  lur  bandera 
Tuots  pigliettan  gilramaint, 
D'  schluppetter  Un  bel  Uorsun ' 
E  '1  mner  mort  sun  Un  bastun  ! 

A  tel  scopo  's  radunettan 
Bain  armos  sUn  il  plaz  grand 
E  'n  discuors  alio  taidlettan 
Pronunzio  dal  comandant 
Giachem  Filli  il  renommo, 
Cbi  bgers  TJors  bo  schluppetto. 

Amihs  !  dschet  el,  aunz  co  'ns  metter 
Per  la  chatscha  in  chamin, 
Stuvais  Tus  uoss'  am  permetter, 
Sco  ais  r  us  eir  a  Berlin, 
Ch'  eau  a  vus  fatsch'  un  discuors, 
Per  spieger  che  ch'ais  un  Uors  : 

—  L'  Uors  ais  Una  bestia  grossa, 
Ferm'  e  granda  sco  'n  liun, 
Cur  el  vain  in  mez  'na  scossa 
Fo'l  d'  Un  bes-ch  be  un  baccun, 
E  suvenz  per  complimaint 
Magi'  il  paster  eir  suraint ; 


A  BEAR  HUNT 

A  proverb  old  and  sound, 
Known  to  all,  suggests 
That  to  sell  the  skin  of  a  bear 
One  must  not  be  too  quick, 
But  must  wait  to  make  one's  market 
Till  the  bear  is  shot. 

This  proverb,  as  far  as  appears. 
Wag  unknown  at  Zernetz, 
The  sharpshooters  on  their  banner 
AU  took  a  solemn  oath 
To  shoot  a  fine  big  bear 
And  bring  him  dead  on  a  pole. 

With  this  view  they  assembled 
Well  armed  upon  the  great  place, 
And  there  gave  attentive  ear 
To  a  speech  made  by  their  captain, 
Jacques  Filli  the  renowned, 
Who  many  bears  has  shot. 

'  Friends  I '  said  he, '  ere  that  we  put 
Ourselves  on  the  road  for  the  hunt. 
You  must  permit  me  now, 
As  the  use  is  at  Berlin  too, 
To  make  a  speech  to  you. 
With  a  view  to  explain  what  a  bear  is. 

'  The  bear  is  a  huge  beast. 
Strong  and  large  as  a  lion. 
When  he  comes  in  the  midst  of  a  herd, 
He  makes  of  a  sheep  but  a  mouthful. 
And  often  as  a  finish 
Eats  the  shepherd  too  in  addition. 


»  Un  is  an  intensitive  termination,  Uorsun  a  large  bear.  Thus  from  Bap,  a 
father,  Bahun  is  an  ancestor  ;  but  the  quaintness  of  this  is  spoiled  by  the  practice  of 
pronouncing  a  final  n  as  m,  which  gives  Baboom  instead  of  Baboon.  This  pronuncia- 
tion has  a  curious  effect  in  such  words  as  chaun  and  paun  in  the  sixth  stanza. 
Chaun  is  pronounced  like  the  first  syllable  in  chamber,  and  paun  rhymes  with  it,  as 
if  an  English  schoolboy  who  had  not  been  introduced  to  the  new-fangled  method  of 
prouunciation  were  cutting  the  middle  out  of  panem. 


190 


THE  ENGADINE 


Cun  Un  cuolp  da  sia  tschatta 
tin  grand  bos-ch  vain  atterr6  ; 
E  sch'  in  fam  el  as  rechatta 
Ho  r  Uors  eir  gii  divoro 
II  chatscheder  e  sieu  chaun 
Sainza  sel  e  sainza  paun  ! — 

Tel  discuors  sUn  1'  adunanza 
Fet  'na  grauda  impressiuu, 
Ognliu  vzair'  in  lontananza 
Gnir  vers  el  Un  trid  Uorsuij, 
Cun  aviert  la  buoch'  e  bratscha 
Pel  maglier  sco  'na  fnatEoha  ! — 

—  Cur  r  intera  compagnia 
FUt  rive«la  in  mez  il  god, 
Cump^r  Brum  be  sper  els  via 
Plaun  plauuet  passet  bain  bod, 
£  cun  fatscha  riaiiteda 
SalUdet  tuot  la  brajeda^ 

Da  trer  our  'ua  scliluppetteda 
Ad  UngUu  gnit  que  in  maint 
E  dT  avair  'sche  bain  passeda 
Flit  'minchliu  pU  co  containt ! — 
—Que  dvantet  in  noss  pajais 
An  ottschientsessauntatrais  !  !  ! 


'  With  one  blow  of  his  paw 
A  great  tree  is  brought  to  the  ground ; 
And,  as  it  is  found  in  story, 
The  bear  has  also  devoured 
The  huntsman  and  his  dog 
Without  salt  and  without  bread-* 

Such  a  speech  as  this 
Made  a  great  impression  on  the  assembly : 
Each  one  saw  in  the  distance 
A  horrid  bear  coming  at  him. 
With  mouth  and  arms  wide  oj)en 
To  eat  him  up  like  a  sweetmeat. 

When  the  entire  company 

Was  arrived  in  the  midst  of  the  wood. 

Leisurely  at  a  fair  pace 

Near  the  road  passed  gossip  Bruin, 

And  with  a  grinning  face 

Saluted  the  whole  brigade. 

It  never  entered  the  mind 
Of  any  to  fire  a  shot. 
And  each  was  more  than  content 
Tliat  the  thing  had  so  well  passed  off. 
This  occurred  in  our  country        [three. 
In  the  year  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty- 


It  is  not  necessary  to  point  out  that  this  passage  of 
Romauntsch  bristles  with  problems  and  illustrations  of 
much  interest  to  the  student  of  languages.  The  pro- 
nunciation has  almost  as  remarkable  a  bearing  on  the 
pronunciation  of  Latin  as  that  of  the  Wallon  of  the 
Belgian  Ardennes  has  upon  the  pronunciation  of 
French.  The  frequent  occurrence  of  the  modified  u 
bears  out  the  canon,  '  La  Valteline  et  I'Engadine 
aiment  beaucoup  VumlautJ 

There  is  rather  a  want  of  early  traditions  of  a 
romantic  character  in  the  Engadine.  One  such  is 
localised  at  Guardaval,  a  name  so  suggestive  of 
romance  that  invention  would  have  been  busy  if  fact 
had  not  forestalled  it.     The  castle  of  Guardaval,  near 


THE  ENGADINE  191 

Madulein,  was  built  by  Bishop  Volkard  of  Chur  before 
tbe  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  as  a  protection  to 
the  dependants  of  the  bishopric.  The  roads  were  so 
unsafe  in  RhaDtia,  that  the  stages  made  by  travellers 
worth  robbing  were  only  from  one  episcopal  castle  to 
another,  always  under  escort  of  an  episcopal  guard. 
The  protection  of  the  Yogt  seated  at  Guardaval,  at  the 
time  of  which  the  tradition  treats,  was  not  the  kind  of 
protection  contemplated  by  the  episcopal  mind.  The 
Yogt  gave  orders  that  a  certain  fair  maid  of  Madulein 
should  be  brought  to  him  at  the  castle,  and  in  order 
that  she  might  be  properly  apparelled  he  sent  down 
gay  clothes  for  her.  Her  father  brought  her,  gaily 
clad,  and  accompanied  by  a  certain  Adam  of  Camogasc, 
who  ran  the  tyrant  through  the  heart  as  he  was  ad- 
ministering a  first  salute  to  the  maid.  The  people 
then  rose  and  dragged  down  the  tower,  stone  by  stone. 
A  guide-book  alludes  to  this  tradition,  and  remarks 
that  it  is  a  modern  invention.  Chiampel's  manuscript, 
however,  written  three  hundred  years  ago,  tells  the 
story,  and  asserts  that  the  grandson  of  Adam  was 
known  to  the  author.  This  is  fairly  good  authority 
for  a  modern  invention. 

A  more  romantic  form  of  the  legend  decoys  the 
maiden  into  the  castle  and  throws  her  from  the  battle- 
ments in  her  determination  to  escape  from  the  Vogt. 
The  whole  is  too  long  to  quote,  but  the  catastrophe  is 
as  follows : — 

Castellan.  Nay,  but  hear ! 

I  swear  by  Guardavall,  by  my  life  I  swear— 


192  THE  ENGADINE 

Adam.    Thy  life  is  mine,  not  thine,  swear  not  by  it. 
Nor  swear  by  Guardavall :  for  stone  on  stone 
Of  Volkard's  tower — 

Cast. '  Let  it  be  so,  yet  hear  ! 

I  swear  by  that  thou  hast  or  hadst  most  dear, 
That  all  unharmed,  untouched,  in  groundless  fear, 
Thy  maiden  sought  her  death.     Her  stainless  soul 
As  pure  of  hurt  from  me  to  Heaven  has  gone 
As  though  she  had  died  some  eighteen  years  ago 
A  babe  on  her  mother's  knee  I 

Ad.    Unharmed !   untouched  I  and  pure  !    What  words 
are  these ! 
She  was  a  maiden  from  the  side  of  Inn : 
Say  that,  thou  sayest  all. 
In  other  lands,  where  villains  such  as  thou 
Mar  God's  fair  earth,  I  doubt  not  that  it  needs — 
When  that  by  some  rare  chance  it  may  be  true — 
Needs  say,  expressly  say,  of  such  an  one 
That  all  imharmed,  untouched,  and  innocent, 
And  pure  she  died.     And  I  can  well  believe 
That  that  fell  land  where  mother  gave  thee  birth 
Hath  many  a  damsel,  many  another  dame, 
Who  makes  those  words  a  lie. 
But  in  this  land  of  ours,  when  such  as  thou 
Casts  devil's  eyes  upon  a  maid  of  Inn, 
And  time  and  place  and  circumstance  favour  him ; 
But  three  words  will  that  dauntless  maiden  say 
Ere  that  she  take  safe  shelter  in  the  grave, 

•  Death  ere  dishonour  ! ' 

And  talkest  thou  of  Heaven  !     Did  I  but  think 

That  such  as  thou  had  aught  to  do  with  Heaven, 

I'd  sin  some  mortal  sin  and  thereby  gain 

The  purer  realms  of  Hell.     Dost  thou  not  know, 

Thou  villain  tyrant,  when  a  son  of  Inn 

Has  innocent  blood  to  avenge,  foul  blood  to  shed. 

But  three  words  will  he  speak  ere  that  he  send 

The  vile,  damned,  caitiff,  soulless  soul  to  Hell, 

*  Death  in  dishonour  ! ' 


THE   ENOADINE  .  198 

There  is  one  interesting  tradition  in  a  Romauntsch 
district  other  than  the  Engadine,  more  than  five  hundred 
years  old,  which  survives  in  full  vigour  to  the  present 
day.  It  relates  to  the  position  of  women  in  church.  In 
the  churches  where  Romauntsch  services  are  held,  the 
women  sit  on  the  north  side  and  the  men  on  the  south. 
The  separation  is  so  well  defined  that  in  some  churches 
the  men  go  out  by  one  door  and  the  women  by  another, 
in  the  less  sophisticated  parts  of  the  valley.  And  it 
may  be  remarked  that  in  one  church,  at  least,  the  men 
light  their  pipes  and  cigars  on  leaving  their  seats,  and 
pass  out  smoking,  possibly  in  preparation  for  an  exercise 
alluded  to  by  Ohiampel  when  the  Reformation  was  still 
a  novelty — '  After  the  sermon,  the  men  are  accustomed 
to  converse  gravely  with  each  other  on  what  they  have 
heard.'  In  the  church  of  Lugnetz  the  order  is  reversed, 
the  women  sitting  on  the  south  side  and  the  men  on 
the  north;  and  the  women  precede  the  men  in  the 
Holy  Communion.  This  arrangement  is  in  perpetual 
memorial  of  a  deed  of  bravery  which  earned  for  the 
women  of  Lugnetz  the  title  of  las  valorusas  femnas  di 
Lungnezza.  In  1352,  the  Count  Rudolf  of  Montfort 
had  a  contest  with  the  Baron  Ulric  Walther  of 
Belmont,  who  ruled  over  the  Foppa,  Lungnezza,  Vals, 
and  Flem.  It  was  a  desperate  strife.  No  less  than 
nine  nobles  were  killed,  and  they  were  buried  side  by 
side  in  the  cloister  of  St.  Nicholas  at  Chur : — Eberhard 
Helmer,  Rudolf  von  Ramsperg,  Albert  von  Stein eck, 
Hermann    von    Grunstein,    Ilmar    Herwer,    Heinrich 

0 


194  THE  ENGADINE 

Rusplinger,  Hermann  von  Landenberg,  Hans  von 
Lindenberg,  and  Wolfli  Singband.  On  one  occasion 
the  men  of  Lugnetz  went  up  into  the  mountains  and 
fought  the  troops  of  Montfort  near  Morissen,  defeating 
them  at  the  little  chapel  of  St.  Carlo.  Meanwhile, 
another  body  of  Montfort's  men  unexpectedly  attacked 
the  valley,  which  had  no  male  defenders  ;  and  since  in 
those  days  such  wars  were  carried  on  with  fire,  rapine, 
and  murder,  all  seemed  lost.  The  women  of  the 
district,  however,  collected  in  a  large  body  at  the  gate 
which  closes  the  entrance  to  the  valley,  still  called 
Porclas  {Porta  clausa),  and  this  they  defended  till  the 
men  came  back  and  completely  routed  the  enemy.  In 
order  to  establish  a  permanent  record  of  the  bravery  of 
their  women,  the  men  determined  that  they  must  sit  on 
the  right  hand  in  church,  and  at  Communion  present 
themselves  first  at  the  altar — aunz  co  ils.  homens  avaunt 
Vuter, 


195 


ARCHJEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE  ^ 

From  the  Quarterly  Statements  of  the  Palestine  Ex- 
ploration Fund,  and  from  several  other  sources,  those 
who  are  interested  in  such  matters,  without  being 
specialists,  have  been  made  aware  that  antiquities 
coming  from  the  Holy  Land  are  not  altogether  above 
suspicion.  They  have  learned,  too,  that  while  certain 
names  constantly  recur  in  connection  with  the  dis- 
covery or  ownership  of  doubtful  objects,  there  is  one 
name  which  has  been  made  to  stand  out  very  pro- 
minently in  their  detection,  that  of  M.  Clermont 
Ganneau.  This  gentleman  has  recently  (1 885)  published 
a  book,  full  of  interest,  entitled  '  Les  Fraudes  Archeo- 
logiques  en  Palestine.'  Had  the  author's  attitude 
towards  other  discoverers  and  learned  men  been  the 
reverse  of  what  it  is,  the  book  would  have  been  a 
delightful  one. 

There  are  many  desiderata  in  connection  with 
Israelite  archaeology.  Some  authentic  inscription,  for 
instance,  of  the  time  of  King  David  would  be  a  great 
acquisition.      Hieroglyphic    inscriptions    of   a    much 

*  National  Beview,  April  1885. 

o  2 


196       ARCHAEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

earlier  date  abound.  The  Hittite  ancestors  of  Bath- 
sheba's  former  husband  are  mentioned  in  inscriptions 
which  were  nearly  a  thousand  years  old  in  David's 
time,  and  exist  still.  Without  going  to  such  antiquity 
as  that,  it  is  quite  clear  that  if  the  genius  of  the 
Israelites  had  run  in  the  direction  of  inscriptions,  there 
is  no  assignable  reason  why  Israelite  inscriptions  of  the 
time  of  David  and  Solomon,  or  the  more  archaic  times 
of  Samuel,  or  even  of  Moses,  should  not  be  found. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  stones — of  the  right 
kind  of  stones,  that  is  to  say — to  render  it  impossible 
for  the  two  tables  of  the  Law  to  be  in  existence  still 
and  still  legible.  Indeed,  the  absence  of  early  Israelite 
inscriptions  needs  explanation  more  than  the  existence 
of  a  considerable  number  of  such  inscriptions  would  do. 
A  race  which  was  always  being  told  how  their  greatest 
man,  at  the  greatest  crisis  of  his  life,  inscribed  on  stone 
the  greatest  moral  and  religious  gift  ever  up  to  that 
time  given  to  mankind,  would  naturally  be  prone  to 
resort  to  that  honoured  method  of  preserving  any 
record  of  supreme  importance.  No  scrap  of  anything 
of  the  kind  has  as  yet  been  found.  It  does  not  say 
much  for  the  courage  and  skill  of  the  gentlemen  who 
provide  portable  little  treasures  of  antiquity  for  tourists 
in  the  Holy  Land,  that  they  have  not  undertaken  some 
magnum  opiis  of  Davidic  or  pre-Davidic  times.  The 
discovery  of  the  Moabite  Stone,  which  has  quickened 
the  forgery  trade,  has  also  impeded  it.  The  forgers  are 
not  even  yet  familiar  with  the  Phoenician  alphabet,  and 


AKCH^OLOGICAL  FRAUDS   IN  PALESTINE        197 

they  dare  not  venture  beyond  a  few  letters.  They 
know,  too,  that  even  tourists  in  the  Holy  Land  will  not 
now  buy  antiques  with  inscriptions  in  modern  alphabets ; 
Cook's  conductors  know  better  than  that.  A  few  years 
ago  there  were  no  such  annoying  complications,  and  the 
forger's  course  was  clear  and  easy.  A  certain  hoard  of 
coins  of  Moses  had  a  great  success  in  the  pre-scientific 
days  of  a  short  generation  ago.  They  bore  square 
Hebrew  letters,  it  is  true ;  but  that  was  not  in  those 
times  a  very  grave  objection,  except  with  the  few.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  had  undoubted  marks  of  great 
antiquity,  which  every  tourist  could  appreciate,  such 
as  a  pair  of  ram's  horns  on  the  bust  of  Moses  which 
adorned  one  side  of  the  coin,  and  real  extracts  from 
Moses'  writings  on  the  other  side.  These  well-known 
characteristics  of  Mosaic  coins  were  found  to  be  very 
convincing. 

An  inscription  of  Moses'  time,  indeed  of  Moses'  own 
construction,  was  produced,  it  is  true,  about  thirteen 
years  ago.  It  was  said  to  have  been  found  at  Madeba, 
some  forty-five  miles  east  of  Jerusalem,  but  its  pro- 
venance  was  not  traced  further  back  than  M.  Shapira's 
curiosity  shop  in  Jerusalem.  Madeba  probably  sug- 
gested itself  as  a  proper  place  for  an  inscription  when 
the  first  rumour  of  the  Moabite  Stone  at  Dhiban  was 
heard.  For  Dibon  and  Medeba  are  mentioned  together, 
each  for  the  first  time,  in  an  archaic  verse  in  Numbers 
(xxi.  30) ;  and  as  that  verse  tells  of  Moses'  victories, 
the  evident  subject  for  an  inscription  at  Madeba  was  a 


198        ARCH^OLOGICAL  FRAUDS   IN  PALESTINE 

victory  of  Moses.  M.  Shapira  had  himself  deciphered 
and  translated  the  inscription.  Priority  of  importance 
over  the  Moabite  Stone  itself  was  claimed  for  it,  a  fact 
which,  even  after  the  lapse  of  many  years,  stirs  M. 
Ganneau's  wrath.  The  date  900  B.C.  would  have 
paled  before  1450  B.C.,  and  Mesha  of  Moab  would 
have  sunk  into  insignificance  in  the  presence  of  Moses 
of  Israel.  M.  Shapira  made  the  stone  speak  as 
follows : 

We  drove  them  away,  the  people  of  Ar  Moab,  at  the  marsh 
ground ;  there  they  made  a  thank-oflfering  to  God  their  King, 
and  Jeshuren  rejoiced,  as  also  Moses  their  leader. 

So,  at  least,  the  *  Times '  said,  printing  Sir  H. 
Lumley's  letter  with  that  unusual  spelling  of  Jeshurun. 
In  the  same  letter  the  careful  reader  will  find  *  Sinaitic' 
printed  '  Siniatic ; '  and  in  Sir  H.  Lumley's  letter  in 
the  next  number  of  the  '  Times,'  '  Phoenician '  printed 
'  Phcenecian.'  These  are  just  the  sort  of  mistakes  by 
which  an  unskilful  forger  is  detected ;  but  their  occur- 
rence in  the  letter  of  a  learned  man  in  the  columns  of 
the  greatest  newspaper  of  the  world  may  induce  M. 
Ganneau  to  make  less  sure  of  some  of  his  evidences  of 
forgery. 

We  have  seen  how  Madeba  may  have  come  to  be 
selected  as  the  lien  de  naissance  of  this  stone.  In  the 
same  chapter  of  Numbers  which  suggested  it,  there  is  a 
quotation  from  that  mysterious  book  which  it  is  to  be 
feared  there  is  now  no  one  capable  of  producing — *  the 
book  of  the  wars  of  the  Lord.'     The  quotation  is  this : 


ARCHAEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        199 

'  What  he  did  ...  at  the  stream  of  the  brooks  that 
goeth  down  to  the  dwelling  of  Ar,  that  lieth  upon  the 
border  of  Moab.'  And  in  the  passage  of  Joshua  in 
which  Medeba  is  mentioned  (xiii.),  we  find  '  the  city 
that  is  in  the  midst  of  the  river,  and  all  the  plain  of 
Medeba.'  Here  we  have  the  origin  of  the  facts  of  his- 
tory and  physical  geography  mentioned  on  the  Madeba 
stone.  There  remains  the  use  of  the  name  '  Jeshurun ' 
to  consider.  It  is  perhaps  sufficient  to  say  that  except- 
ing once  in  Isaiah,  where  our  authorised  version,  the 
authority  (and  a  sufficient  one)  for  the  '  Times,'  spells 
it  wrong,  it  occurs  only  in  that  one  book  of  the  Old 
Testament  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  chief 
study  of  M.  Shapira  and  his  learned  friends,  namely 
Deuteronomy.  It  may  serve  to  connect  this  poetical 
record  of  the  rocks  more  closely  still  with  that  Moses 
whom  it  names  as  the  leader  of  Jeshurun,  to  notice 
that  when  the  name  does  occur,  as  the  title  of  Israel,  it 
is  found  in  the  two  magnificent  poems  which  Moses 
recites  in  the  last  two  chapters  of  the  book.  Thus  the 
whole  record  is  full  of  highly  interesting  coincidences. 

This  inscription  must  have  been  a  great  disappoint- 
ment to  its  author.  It  was  presumably  put  in  hand  at 
the  time  when  the  Moabite  stone  began  to  be  talked 
about,  and  before  it  was  sprung  upon  the  world  the 
alphabet  of  the  Moabite  stone  was  fairly  well  known. 
Unfortunately,  the  author  of  the  Madeba  inscription 
had  selected,  not  unnaturally,  the  Sinaitic  character, 
and  had,  in  fact,  reproduced  a  Nabathean  inscription 


200       AECHiEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

from  Um  er-Russas,  on  which  other  people  in  modern 
times  had  practised ;  indeed,  one  skilful  gentleman  had 
taken  in  a  German  savant  by  inscribing  a  portion  of  it 
upside  down.  The  Sinaitic  character  is  so  unlike  that 
of  the  Moabite  inscription,  especially  in  the  letters  of 
the  key  words  Moses  and  Moab,  that  the  Mosaic  record 
of  the  victory  at  Medeba  had  but  a  short  course  of 
authentic  life.  It  may  be  remembered  that  when 
Captain  Warren  first  sent  for  a  squeeze  of  the  Moabite 
stone,  his  messenger  brought  back  a  squeeze  of  a 
Nabathean  inscription,  which  Captain  Warren  promptly 
rejected. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  we  cannot  stop  here,  and 
pass  on  to  other  matters  than  the  *  new  Moabite  stone.' 
But  there  are  a  few  words  which,  in  the  interests  of 
truth  and  propriety,  ought  to  be  said,  however  un- 
pleasant it  may  be  to  say  them.  Let  M.  Ganneau  tell 
us  himself  what  Sir  Henry  Lumley  did  when  M. 
Shapira  shewed  him  the  precious  piece  of  porphyry  at 
Jerusalem : 

Celui-ci  s'empressa  d'en  faire  part  au  pubUc  dans  tme  lettre 
qui  parut  dans  le  Times,  le  29  novembre  1871,  et  qui  fit  tout 
d'abord  grande  impression.  .  .  .  Helas  I  Ton  ne  tarda  gu^re  h, 
s'apercevoir  qu'il  en  fallait  singuli^rement  rabattre.  Cette 
merveille  qui  se  pr^sentait  comme  la  revanche  d'lsrael  sur 
Moab  et  qui  ne  pretendait  i  rien  moins  qu'd  rel^giier  la  st^le  de 
Mesa  au  troisieme  rang,  n'etait  pas  autre  chose  qu'un  nouveau 
pastiche  de  Tinscription  nabat^enne  d'Oumm  er-Eesas  dont  j'ai 
parl6  plus  haut. 

Now  look  on  the  other  side  of  the  picture.  There 
is  no  such  letter  in  the  '  Times '  of  November  29,  1871, 


ARCH^OLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE       201 

nor  in  any  'Times'  of  that  year.  It  was  written  in 
Jerusalem  on  November  29,  1871,  and  sent  to  the 
'  Times,'  but  it  did  not  appear.  Sir  H.  Lumley  came 
to  England,  shewed  the  squeeze  to  Mr.  Deutsch,  and 
got  such  an  opinion  from  him  that  he  at  once  sent  to 
the  '  Times '  to  have  his  letter  stopped.  But  on 
January  26,  1872,  to  his  surprise  and  annoyance,  the 
letter  appeared  in  the  columns  of  the  ^  Times.'  M. 
Ganneau  says  of  it :  '  Qui  fit  tout  d'abord  grande  im- 
jpression  .  .  .  Von  ne  tarda  guere  d  s'apercevoir,^  &c.  It 
is  not  easy  to  believe  that  what  happened  was  this. 
On  the  next  day,  January  27,  1872,  a  letter  from  Sir 
H.  Lumley  appeared  in  the  '  Times,'  dated  January  26, 
stating  that  on  his  arrival  in  England  after  writing 
from  Jerusalem  in  November,  Mr.  Deutsch  had  told 
him  the  squeeze  shewed  the  inscription  to  be,  not 
Moabite  or  Phoenician,  but  Nabathean,  and  that  a  copy 
more  or  less  complete  of  what — so  far  as  he  could  judge 
from  a  mere  tracing — seemed  to  be  the  same  inscription, 
had  appeared  twice  already.  ^  I  took  immediate  steps 
to  w^ithdraw  my  letter  to  you,'  he  proceeds,  '  written 
under  very  different  impressions,  but,  unluckily,  it  seems 
to  have  crept  into  your  columns  after  all.'  Had  M. 
Ganneau  found  a  brother  savant  doing  the  sort  of  thing 
he  has  himself  done  in  dealing  with  this  matter,  he 
would  have  told  him,  in  carefully  pointed  phraseology, 
that  his  date,  and  his  ^fit  tout  d'ahord  grande  impression,'' 
and  his  '  Von  ne  tarda  guere  a  s'apercevoir,'  &c.,  needed 
explanation  quite   as  much   as  the  scratches   on   the 


202        ARCHAEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

leather  of  the  manuscript  of  Deuteronomy.     And  he 
would  have  had  public  opinion  with  him. 

The  seal  of  King  David  was  offered  to  M.  Clermont 
Ganneau,  at  Jerusalem,  some  eleven  years  ago,  for  ten 
francs.  The  illustrious  French  savant  did  not  secure 
this  unique  treasure  at  this  easy  price,  and  it  probably 
now  forms  the  principal  glory  of  some  private  collection 
of  antiquities  from  the  Holy  Land.  The  inscription 
was  in  four  lines,  thirteen  letters  in  all,  and  the  inter- 
pretation was,  '  Servant  of  Jehovah,  David  King.'  In 
order  to  suit  various  tastes,  the  engraver  had  patronised 
various  alphabets  ;  there  was  a  Phoenician  d,  a  Samari- 
tan m,  a  Rabbinic  A*,  a  Latin  I,  a  Moabite  jod^  and  an 
English  e.  The  inscription  was  legible  enough,  even 
though  the  engraver  copied  badly.  The  same  cannot 
be  said  of  the  inscription  on  the  sarcophagus  of  Samson, 
which  is  much  the  reverse  of  legible.  The  sarcophagus 
is  all  gone  but  one  side,  a  slab  of  lead  about  four  feet 
long.  Leaden  sarcophagi  of  the  Greek  and  Byzantine 
periods  are  not  uncommon ;  visitors  to  the  Louvre  will 
remember  a  highly  ornamented  example  on  a  shelf  on 
the  Egyptian  staircase,  brought  by  M.  Renan  from  Saida, 
with  scrolls  whose  curious  details  are  reproduced  on 
some  of  the  early  English  sculptured  stones.  The  in- 
scription on  the  Samson  sarcophagus  is  incised,  and 
consists  of  fifty  letters  ;  they  have  a  decided  soupgon  of 
the  Moabite  stone,  but  at  the  same  time  give  the  im- 
pression that  the  engraver  had  got  hold  of  some  such 
document  as  one  of  Mr.  Isaac  Taylor's  tables  of  various 


ARCH^OLOGICAL  FEAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        203 

alphabets,  and  had  let  his  eye  wander.  M.  Ganneau 
does  not  profess  to  take  the  trouble  to  decipher  the  in- 
scription, but  remarks  that  the  closing  word  is  clearly 
Samson,  '  written  Chimchon.'  It  is  evidently  what  we 
should  reproduce  as  '  Shmshon,'  and  the  engraver,  if  he 
took  the  French  spelling  to  imply  a  cheth,  as  it  seems 
to  do,  would  repudiate  the  ch  with  some  indignation. 
M.  Shapira  brought  it  to  England.  It  had  no  success 
here,  and  its  owner  then  announced  that  he  had  brought 
it  to  shew  how  easily  a  real  forgery  could  be  detected. 
The  lead  is  undoubtedly  of  very  considerable  age,  and 
M.  Clermont  Ganneau  shrewdly  remarks  that  the  cupola 
of  the  Mosque  of  Omar  had  been  under  repair  about 
that  time.  He  seems  to  have  an  intuitive  perception 
of  the  likeliest  means  and  instruments  for  forgery,  which 
renders  him  a  dangerous  subject  for  a  forger  to  practise 
on. 

On  many  accounts  an  inscription  in  Greek  letters 
would  be  easier  to  make  tolerably  natural  than  one  in 
Phoenician  characters.  The  advantages  of  an  attempt 
in  this  direction  became  evident  some  years  ago  to  an 
acquaintance  of  M.  Clermont  Ganneau,  Martin  Boulos 
by  name,  a  worker  in  marble,  who  was  accustomed  to 
engrave  epitaphs  for  the  Jews'  cemetery.  In  1871 
M.  Clermont  Ganneau  was  fortunate  enough  to  find  in 
the  foundations  of  an  old  Arab  house,  near  the  Mosque 
of  Omar,  a  very  remarkable  Greek  inscription,  no  less 
than  the  law  excluding  foreigners  from  Herod's  Temple 
on  pain  of  death,  copies  of  which  are  known  to  iave 


204        ARCH^OLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

been  placed  at  various  parts  of  the  precincts.  The  in- 
scription was  complete :  ^  Let  no  foreigner  pass  within 
the  precincts  of  the  Temple.  Any  one  found  so  doing 
will  be  guilty  of  his  own  death.'  M.  Clermont  Ganneau 
spent  a  good  deal  of  money  in  his  endeavour  to  secure 
this  stone,  but  in  vain ;  the  Mussulman  owners  of  the 
house  absolutely  refused  to  allow  the  stone  to  be  removed. 
He  left  Jerusalem  for  Constantinople ;  and  the  very  day 
of  his  departure  the  Turkish  governor  had  it  taken  out 
of  the  wall  and  carried  to  his  quarters,  where  he  received 
offers  from  '  the  representatives  of  certain  Powers/  as 
M.  Clermont  Ganneau  puts  it,  meaning  certainly  the 
hated  Prussians,  and  probably  the  English  too.  The 
Governor  is  said  to  have  asked  2,000/.  sterling  for  it  at 
first,  and,  later  on,  1500Z.  Turk  (about  1,380Z.  sterling). 
Afterwards  he  offered  it  to  a  Jew  financier  living  in 
Paris;  but  the  national  instinct  did  not  incite  the 
financier  to  make  a  sufficient  financial  exertion,  and  it 
now  rests  in  the  museum  at  Constantinople,  of  all  places 
in  the  world. 

On  M.  Ganneau's  arrival  at  Constantinople,  which 
took  place  fourteen  years  before  he  learned  that  the 
Temple  inscription  was  there,  Martin  Boulos  endeavoured 
to  provide  some  compensation  for  his  loss  of  the  stone. 
He  found  another  copy  of  the  law  of  Herod,  built  into 
the  foundations  of  a  wall,  with  the  lines  vertical,  ex- 
actly as  in  the  first  case.  There  was  a  great  deal  of 
ceremony  and  secrecy  about  shewing  the  precious 
treasure   to    M.  Ganneau's   correspondent.     The  hour 


AKCHiEOLOGICAL  FKAUDS   IN  PALESTINE       205 

fixed  was  5  o'clock  in  the  morning,  that  the  Governor 
might  not  get  wind  of  what  was  going  on.     The  place 
was  an  ass's  stable,  in  the  wall  of  which  the  stone  was 
embedded,  and,  to  the  terror  of  Martin  and  the  pro- 
prietor, the  ass  began  to  bray.     They  stopped  that  by 
pulling  his  tail — an  infallible  remedy,  it  seems — and  at 
last  they  saw  the  stone.     What  passed  we  are  not  told, 
but  Martin  was  encouraged  to  proceed  with  the  negotia- 
tion, and  in  a  few  days  he  brought  the  stone  in  triumph 
to  M.  Ganneau's  friend.     That  gentleman  was  ready. 
He  told  Martin  that  it  was  a  forgery,  so  frankly  and  so 
conclusively,  that  Martin  fled,  and  left  the  spoil  in  M. 
Ganneau's  friend's  possession.    The  photographic  repro- 
duction of  Martin's  stone  shews  that  the  Greek  letters 
are  very  boldly  and  well  cut,  and  are,  for  the  most  part, 
correct;  and  yet,  handsome  as  the  inscription  looks, 
the  blunders  in  the  details  of  letters  are  so  frequent 
that  only  two  words  out  of  twenty-two  are  Greek  words, 
and  they  are  so  short — only  three  letters  and  two  re- 
spectively— that  their  correctness  is  no  doubt  accidental. 
It  was  scarcely  necessary  to  warn  the  scientific  world 
against  performances  such  as  this.    An  idea  of  Martin's 
inscription  may  be  given  in  English  capitals,  without 
making  any  special  type  for  the  purpose  ;  it  would  be 
necessary  to  make  special  type  for  a  full  description, 
since  some  of  his  letters  are  not  Greek  letters  at  all. 
Taking  the  first  three  words  of  the  warning  notice  in 
its  English  dress,  '  Let  no  foreigner,'  Martin,  at  his  best, 
would  have  produced   something  of  this  kind :   '  LEI 


206       AKCHiEOLOaiCAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

NO  EOBEICNEP/  He  would  have  been  in  good 
company  in  making  T  into  I,  for  either  Captain  Warren, 
of  the  Palestine  Exploration,  or  the  sculptor  who  cut 
the  beautiful  inscription,  in  Greek  letters,  to  Titus 
^lius  Adrianus  Antoninus,  on  a  pedestal  in  a  garden 
at  Saida,  made  exactly  that  mistake,  giving  Autokraiori 
for  Autokraiori, 

The  Moabite  pottery,  which  began  to  come  over  to 
England  in  1872,  must  be  fresh  still  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  take  an  interest  in  these  matters.  It  was 
some  of  it  very  fresh  when  it  came.  After  a  certain 
time  devoted  to  careful  consideration — a  fashion  which 
English  learned  men  follow  as  being  preferable  to  the 
course  of  rushing  upon  a  thing,  or  its  possessor,  with  a 
wild  shriek  of  Faussaire  ! — the  Moabite  pottery  was  con- 
demned. Its  owner,  M.  Shapira,  had,  meanwhile,  been 
more  fortunate  in  Germany,  where  the  new  Emperor 
provided  the  money  for  the  purchase  of  a  large  collec- 
tion, some  seventeen  hundred  pieces,  at  the  moderate 
average  of  21.  a  piece.  To  this  step  the  Emperor  was 
led  by  the  opinion  of  a  very  learned  man,  M.  Schlott- 
mann,  who  declared  the  things  to  be  authentic.  M. 
Clermont  Ganneau  does  not  let  M.  Schlottmann  down 
easy. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  English  officers  of 
the  Exploration  Fund  in  Jerusalem  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  first  specimens  of  the  pottery  examined 
by  tjhem  there  were  genuine.  They  sent  over  sketches 
and  descriptions,  and  expressed  themselves  as  quite  con- 


AECHJEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        207 

vinced.  M.  Ganneau  refers  especially  to  a  letter  in  the 
*  Athenaeum '  of  November  2,  1872,  in  which  '  M.  Drake 
se  prononce  formellement  pour  I'authenticite,'  insisting 
on  the  variety  of  execution  and  of  style,  which  implied 
various  hands  and  various  epochs,  on  the  intimate 
knowledge  shewn  of  phallic  rites,  and  on  the  high 
esteem  in  which  M.  Shapira  was  held  by  all  the  Protes- 
tant community  of  Jerusalem,  that  gentleman  being  a 
converted  Jew.  It  will  be  seen  from  this  recapitulation 
of  Mr.  Drake's  arguments  that  the  hint  given  in  the 
Bible  of  the  cuUus  of  Baal  Peor  had  been  made  full  use 
of  by  the  makers  and  the  decorators  of  the  Moabite  pot- 
tery. The  result  was  that  the  early  Moabites  were  credited 
with  some  abominable  obscenities  in  their  common 
household  ware.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  Book 
of  Numbers  passes  straight  on  from  the  mention  of 
Dibon  and  Medeba  to  the  story  of  Balaam,  with  its 
immediate  sequel  in  the  evil  practices  connected  with 
Baal  Peor.  Thus  the  inspiration  of  the  new  Moabite 
stone  and  of  the  Moabite  pottery  probably  came  from 
a  study  of  this  limited  portion  of  the  wanderings  of 
Israel. 

Mr.  Conder  also  took  an  optimist  view  of  the  pottery. 
He  recognised  Astarte  in  a  horned  goddess :  he  found 
specimens  of  the  biblical  teraphim,  an  image  of  a  phoenix, 
a  Midianite  priapus,  and  so  on.  He  read  on  one  piece 
the  name  Jehovah. 

The  committee  of  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund 
asked  the  opinion  of  M.  Clermont  Ganneau.     He  an- 


208        ARCHAEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS   IN  PALESTINE 

swered  that,  in  his  opinion,  the  things  were  forgeries 
from  first  to  last.  The  pottery  was  covered  with  in- 
scriptions, in  characters  the  same — or  meant  to  be  the 
same — as  those  of  the  Moabite  stone.  But  they  were 
badly  copied,  and  they  were  combined  in  such  a  manner 
as  not  to  make  translatable  words.  The  style  of  the 
letters  struck  M.  Clermont  Ganneau  as  resembling  that 
of  a  copy  which  Selim-el-Qari  had  made  for  him  of  some 
lines  of  the  Moabite  stone,  and  he  put  the  forgery  down 
to  this  former  ally  of  his.  All  through  M.  Ganneau's 
discoveries  of  forgery,  it  has  been  of  inestimable  service 
to  him  that  he  has  known  so  well  the  ways  and  the 
personnel  of  Jerusalem  rascality. 

In  the  case  of  this  pottery,  as  in  other  instances 
adduced  by  M.  Ganneau,  the  impression  conveyed  by 
his  book  is  that  he  was  the  one  wise  man,  Athan^tsiiLs 
contra  mundum.  But  Mr.  Drake  himself  had  said,  in 
writing  to  the  *  Athenaeum,'  that,  except  in  Jerusalem, 
people  everywhere  attacked  the  pottery  as  false.  And 
the  '  Athenaeum'  affixed  an  editorial  note  to  Mr.  Drake's 
letter  quoted  by  M.  Ganneau — M.  Ganneau  makes  no 
reference  to  this  editorial  note — to  the  effect  that  they 
printed  the  letter  for  what  it  might  be  worth,  that  the 
Germans  (Dr.  Socin)  were  the  first  to  use  the  word 
forgery,  that  only  one  German  of  repute  had  '  gone  in ' 
for  its  genuineness  and  attempted  a  translation  of  the 
inscriptions,  and  that  even  he  confessed  that  the  attempt 
had  not  satisfied  him. 

M.  Ganneau  returned  to  Jerusalem  towards  the  end 


AECHiEOLOGICAL  FEAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        209 

of  1873j  sent  there  on  an  Archaeological  mission  by  the 
Palestine  Exploration  Fund.  'Je  savais  d'avance,  je 
puis  le  dire,  ce  que  j'allais  trouver  a  Jerusalem,'  he 
tells  us,  but  we  do  not  gather  whether  his  knowledge 
was  the  fruit  of  early  experiences  or  was  pure  theory. 
His  first  step  was  to  endeavour  to  obtain  a  sight  of  the 
new  collection  of  Moabite  pottery  which  M.  Shapira 
was  getting  together  from  the  friendly  Bedawin  of  the 
land  of  Moab.  The  search  instituted  by  these  gentry 
when  they  heard  that  the  first  batch  had  sold  for 
SfiOOl.  appeared  to  be  greatly  blessed.  The  pots  came 
in  by  the  hundred.  Moab  was  always  a  fertile  land, 
and  its  fecundity  was  found  to  extend  to  works  of  art, 
early  art,  art  scarcely  worth  the  name  of  art,  but  price- 
less from  its  hoar  antiquity.  M.  Shapira  had,  of  course, 
heard  that  this  would-be  visitor  had  condemned  the 
things  which  some  of  the  English  critics  had  believed 
and  the  practical  Germans  had  bought,  and  he  declined 
to  allow  his  treasures  to  be  polluted  by  the  eye  or  the 
hand  of  such  a  sceptic.  But  M.  Shapira  was  under 
great  obligations  to  Mr.  Drake,  who  knew  the  collec- 
tions well,  and  M.  Ganneau  persuaded  Mr.  Drake  to 
persuade  M.  Shapira  to  take  off  the  embargo  and  let 
him  see  them.  M.  Ganneau  tells  us  that  he  had  con- 
fided to  Mr.  Drake  his  real  object,  and  had  succeeded 
in  shaking  his  belief  in  the  authenticity  of  the  things. 
Mr.  Drake  himself  has  told  us  that  it  was  impossible 
not  to  notice  and  be  struck  by  the  great  difierence 
between  the  first  batch  of  pottery  and  that  which  fol- 

P 


210        ARCHAEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

lowed.  The  first  specimens  were  good  ware,  and  had 
few  inscriptions ;  the  latter  were  of  very  poor  texture, 
and  were  covered  with  inscriptions.  Some  of  the 
earlier  pieces  were  almost  certainly  old,  whatever  else 
they  might  be  or  not  be.  The  two  counter-plotters 
were  ushered  into  a  large  room  full  of  figures,  vases, 
and  all  manner  of  articles  of  pottery,  covered  with 
inscriptions  in  Moabite  characters,  the  whole  thing  in 
such  profusion  as  was  itself  the  most  convincing 
evidence  of  fabrication.  The  workmanship  was  of  the 
rudest  description,  not  with  an  archaic  rudeness,  which 
is  honest,  telling,  and  real,  but  with  that  vulgar  nide- 
ness  which  speaks  of  debased  or  fraudulent  art.  The 
French  savant  can  think  of  nothing  better  to  compare 
with  the  sight  that  met  his  eyes  than  a  collection  of 
gingerbread  men  on  a  stall  at  a  village  fair ;  and  the 
comparison  is  graphic  and  true.  He  recognised  at 
once  the  style  of  Selim,  some  of  whose  works  of  art  he 
had  already  in  his  possession — how  or  when  acquired 
we  do  not  learn,  for  we  are  not  here  dealing  with  the 
question  of  inscriptions.  M.  Shapira  allowed  him  to 
examine  the  pieces  closely,  and  he  found  that  the  clay 
was  that  in  ordinary  use  at  the  present  day  among  the 
potters  of  Jerusalem,  and  that  in  some  cases  it  was 
scarcely  baked.  There  was  even  the  impression  of  the 
coarse  linen  on  which  it  had  been  laid  when  fresh — 
though  how  that  proved  it  modem  M.  Ganneau  does 
not  say.  In  short,  of  the  whole  collection — *  dont  M. 
Shapira,  ses  premieres  hesitations  une  fois  vaincues, 


ARCH^OLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        211 

nous  avait  fait  du  reste  les  honneurs  avec  une  com- 
plaisance que  je  me  plais  a  reconnaitre' — there  was 
not  one  piece  which  could  be  considered  real.  M. 
Ganneau  told  Mr.  Drake,  as  they  left  the  house,  that 
the  only  authentic  thing  he  had  seen  was  a  live  ostrich; 
and  that,  as  for  the  pottery,  the  only  thing  left  was  to 
look  for  the  potter.  Of  Arab  potters  there  were  not 
more  than  six  in  Jerusalem,  so  the  field  of  investigation 
was  not  large. 

His  first  attempt  was  upon  a  day  labourer,  Abou 
Mansoura,  whom  he  questioned  with  extreme  care  not 
to  arouse  his  suspicions.  Abou  Mansoura  set  him  on 
the  track  by  telling  him  that  he  had  worked  for  a 
Christian  called  Selim-el-Qari,  who  made  statues  and 
vases  of  clay,  with  inscriptions.  He  had  given  up 
working  for  him,  and  mentioned  Bakir-el-Masri  as 
Selim's  present  potter.  Bakir  said  he  had  never 
worked  for  Selim,  but  a  young  apprentice  of  his, 
Hassan,  had  formerly  worked  with  another  potter, 
Ahmed,  and  this  Ahmed  had  business  relations  with 
Selim.  From  Hassan  M.  Ganneau  learned  the  whole 
story.  Selim  got  his  clay  from  Ahmed,  made  it  into 
men,  dogs,  and  women — that  was  Hassan's  order  of 
merit — with  their  noses,  feet,  hands,  and  busts  covered 
with  writing.  He  then  sent  them  to  Ahmed  to  be 
baked.  Vases,  which  required  the  wheel,  Ahmed  made, 
and  Selim  inscribed  them,  and  then  they  were  baked, 
Hassan's  function  was  to  carry  the  things  backwards 
and  forwards.     This   he   did  after  sunset,  concealing 

T  2 


212        ARCH^OLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

them  under  a  long  cloak  which  he  wore,  but  he  was  so 
much  afraid  of  being  stopped  by  some  patrol  that  he 
left  Ahmed's  service.  The  pieces  were  all  counted  with 
minute  accuracy,  and  if  one  got  broken  the  fragments 
were  collected  with  the  utmost  care.  On  one  occasion 
Hassan  had  dropped  a  very  small  piece,  one  of  the 
tesseras,  and  Selim  gave  a  little  boy  who  picked  it  up 
the  important  sum  of  eight  sous.  On  some  occasions, 
when  Hassan  brought  the  things  to  Selim 's  house,  Selim 
plunged  them  in  water,  telling  him  it  was  to  age  them. 

Mr.  Drake,  who  stood  to  his  favourable  opinion  of 
the  first  batch  of  Moabite  pottery,  reported  on  by  him 
and  purchased  by  the  Emperor  William,  took  M. 
Ganneau's  view  of  the  second  batch,  and  entered  upon 
a  similar  investigation.  He,  too,  got  hold  of  Abou 
Mansoura,  and  obtained  from  him  information  which 
he  got  him  to  declare  before  the  English  Consul. 

These  things  M.  Ganneau  laid  before  the  world  in  a 
letter  published  in  the  'Athenaaum'  on  January  24, 
1874,  and  here  again  we  get  the  impression  that  he 
was  the  first  in  the  field,  was,  indeed,  the  sole  dis- 
coverer. But  early  in  November  of  the  previous  year 
Mr.  Drake  had  learned  from  some  Bedawin  that  written 
jars  were  made  in  Jerusalem,  transported  to  Moab, 
buried  there,  and  shewn  to  M.  Shapira  as  found  in 
caves.  This  he  communicated  privately  to  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund  in  a  letter 
written  on  November  11.  On  November  12,  M.  Gan- 
neau wrote  a  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Fund,  in 


AECH^OLOGICAL  FKAUDS  IN   PALESTINE        218 

which  was  a  statement  that  he  was  on  the  track  of  the 
pottery.  Thus  Mr.  Drake  had  that  iwioriU  which 
M.  Ganneau  claimed  with  such  amusing  anxiety,  and 
such  curious  insinuations,  in  the  matter  of  the  Moabite 
stone,  in  his  letter  to  the  '  Times  '  March  22,  1870. 

When  the  'Athenaeum'  in  due  course  made  its 
appearance  in  Jerusalem,  there  was  consternation 
there.  M.  Weser,  who  had  been  instrumental  in 
procuring  the  first  batch  of  pottery  for  the  Prussian 
Government,  questioned  the  witnesses,  and  got  a  very 
different  account  from  them.  He  then  proposed  to 
M.  Ganneau  that  they  and  the  witnesses  should  meet 
in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Drake  and  have  it  out.  In 
answer  to  M.  Ganneau's  direct  question,  M.  Weser  said 
— as  M.  Ganneau  tells  us — that  the  enquiry  was 
entirely  a  personal  one,  and  of  a  character  strictly 
private,  and  on  that  assurance  M.  Ganneau  fell  into 
the  trap.  He  tells  us  that,  as  he  learned  afterwards, 
the  enquiry  was  absolutely  official,  undertaken,  on  an 
imperative  order  from  the  Prussian  Government,  under 
the  direction  of  Dr.  Kersten,  the  German  Consul  at 
Jerusalem.  He  describes  what  happened  with  dramatic 
force.  Mr.  Drake  and  Lieutenant  Conder  provided  the 
place  of  meeting,  M.  Ganneau  took  with  him  his  artist, 
and  M.  Weser  was  accompanied  by  M.  Duisberg,  an 
honourable  grocer  of  Jerusalem  decorated  by  the 
Bavarian  Government,  who  has  enriched  the  Museum 
of  Stuttgart  with  Moabite  pottery,  and  by  one  Serapion 
as  interpreter,  a  Levantine,  an  employe  of  the  German 


214        ARCHAEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

Consulate,  of  whom  M.  Ganneau  remarks  that  he  has 
since  been  cashiered.  The  witnesses  were  called  in 
one  by  one.  You  might  have  thought  you  were 
reading  the  *  Thousand  and  Second  Night.'  Hassan 
was  in  floods  of  tears.  He  declared  on  oath  that  the 
*  Khawadja  au  cheval  blanc,'  there  present,  that  is  to 
say  M.  Ganneau,  had  entrapped  him  and  kept  him 
locked  up,  had  beaten  him,  and  threatened  him  with 
death,  to  make  him  tell  the  tale  he  told  him  to  tell. 
Next  came  Abd-el-Baqi,  that  is  to  say,  Abou  Mansoura. 
We  are  not  told  that  he  was  in  tears,  but  he  swore 
strong  oaths.  He  swore  by  Allah  and  the  triple 
divorce  that  the  said  Khawadja  had  come  to  him 
voler  sa  languey  and  to  make  him  repeat  word  for  word 
the  tale  he  had  thereupon  told  to  Mr.  Drake  and 
declared  before  the  English  Consul.  Bakir  came  next, 
and  swore  by  oaths  the  most  holy  that  Hassan  came  to 
him  after  his  interview  with  M.  Ganneau  and  told  him 
just  the  same  piteous  tale  that  he  had  now  told  in  that 
honourable  presence.  The  third  potter,  Ahmed,  swore 
solemnly  that  he  did  not  even  know  Selim,  and  with 
an  exuberance  of  completeness  declared  that  he  had 
never  done  work  for  any  one  of  that  name.  But  that 
was  nothing  to  what  was  to  come.  Selim,  the  very 
Selim-el-Qari  himself,  the  culprit  whose  evil  deeds 
M.  Ganneau  had  so  triumphantly  detected,  Selim  ap- 
peared. That  his  appearance  was  not  altogether 
voluntary  we  gather  from  M.  Ganneau,  who  tells  us 
that,  though  an  Ottoman  subject,  he  had  been  arrested 


AKCH^OLOrxICAL  FEAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        216 

without  ceremony  and  imprisoned  at  the  German  Con- 
sulate, the  same  arbitrary  authority  having  carried  out 
a  domiciliary  search  at  his  house  without  finding  any- 
thing suspicious — le  drole,  se  sentant  menace,  avait  dii 
prendre  ses  precautions.'  It  should  be  added  that  some 
time  later  a  like  visit,  instituted  by  the  next  German 
Consul,  Baron  Munchausen,  discovered  a  Moabite  image. 
Selim,  then,  appeared.  He  pathetically  declared  his 
innocence,  and  then  turned  suddenly  to  his  accuser 
'  avec  un  mouvement  oratoire  qui  ne  manquait  pas 
d'une  certaine  ampleur.'  This  was  what  Selim  said: 
*M.  Ganneau  met  me  two  months  ago  in  the  street, 
near  the  Greek  convent,  and  promised  me  a  hundred 
pounds  if  I  would  declare  that  the  potteries  of  M. 
Shapira  were  false,  and  were  fabricated  by  M.  Shapira 
and  myself.'  '  Ce  coup  de  theatre  etait  vraiment  du 
dernier  comique,'  M.  Ganneau  adds,  with  an  appreciative 
sense  of  the  humour  of  the  situation  with  which  his 
readers  would  scarcely  credit  him.  Of  course,  to 
persons  not  infected  with  the  odium  Moahiticum  the 
story  told  by  the  witnesses  was  incredible;  but  even 
those  who  disbelieved  it  laughed  at  it  as  an  excellent 
joke,  and  some,  no  doubt,  found  a  certain  sly  enjoy- 
ment in  the  discomfiture  of  the  savant  M.  Ganneau 
deals  with  those  from  whom  he  differs  in  a  manner 
which  renders  it  less  difficult  than  from  his  knowledge 
and  position  it  ought  to  be  to  raise  a  laugh  at  his 
expense. 

It  is  not  without  a  sensation  of  lively  amusement 


216        AECILEOLOGICAL  FKAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

that  we  find  M.  Ganneau  relying,  after  all,  on  the 
evidence  of  Selim's  words,  or  rather  hints.  In  the 
summer  of  1877  it  would  seem  that  Selim  had  a  desire 
to  visit  Paris,  and  it  appears  to  have  occurred  to  him 
that  he  might  as  well  travel  at  his  former  employer's 
expense.  Accordingly,  he  wrote  to  M.  Ganneau  to 
say  that  M.  Shapira  and  he  had  fallen  out  over  some 
payments,  and  that  he,  Selim,  wished  to  ruin  M.  Shapira, 
as  M.  Shapira  had  ruined  him.  If  M.  Ganneau  wished 
to  have  the  whole  pack  of  lies  shewn  up  from  beginning 
to  end,  he  was  to  send  him  money  for  the  journey  from 
Jerusalem  to  Paris.  This  letter  M.  Ganneau  prints  in 
full,  as  evidence  that  the  pottery  was  a  forgery.  It  does 
not  mention  pottery  at  all.  It  speaks  of  antiquities 
generally,  and,  as  it  is  clear  that  there  had  long  been 
dealings  in  antiquities,  the  reference  may  be  to  some- 
thing else  than  the  pottery.  The  letter  is  veiled  and 
subtle,  and  tells  nothing.  If  Selim  had  got  his  journey 
money  and  come  to  Paris,  and  told  a  circumstantial 
tale  of  forgery,  there  would  still  have  been  people 
foolish  and  mean  enough  to  say,  that  the  one  occasion 
on  which  he  really  told  the  truth  was  that  which  M. 
Ganneau  has  likened  to  the  '  Thousand  and  Second 
Night.' 

All  this  work  of  carving  inscriptions  on  stones, 
incising  them  on  lead,  impressing  them  on  pottery, 
and  engraving  them  on  gems,  required  persons  skilled 
in  manual  labour;  and  such  persons  were  naturally 
not    quite    equal   to   the   task    of    reproducing   with 


AECHiEOLOGICAL  FKAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        217 

sufficient  exactness  the  archaic  form  and  disposition 
of  the  letters,  and  of  inventing  likely  inscriptions. 
For  complete  success,  scholars  and  men  of  letters 
were  required,  and  the  work  must  be  done  in  secret, 
without  the  intervention  of  persons  in  a  position  to  be 
bribed  or  likely  to  become  talkative  in  their  cups.  As 
time  went  on,  those  who  were  bent  on  making  some 
really  grand  coup  appear  to  have  seen  that  the  only 
kind  of  forgery  which  would  meet  the  exigencies  of  the 
case  was  the  forgery  of  a  manuscript.  Unfortunately, 
there  was  an  inherent  difficulty  in  the  way  of  a  Davidic 
or  a  Mosaic  document,  the  nature  of  the  material. 
With  a  good  block  of  basalt  the  only  question  was  the 
genuineness  of  the  lettering  ;  with  papyri,  dates  reach- 
ing very  far  back  indeed  are  accepted  without  hesitation ; 
but  with  a  roll  of  leather  there  came  the  disagreeable 
question,  which  any  ignoramus  could  ask,  and  every  one 
would  be  sure  to  ask,  how  had  the  material  survived  ? 
No  doubt  the  secret  council  which  considered  the  whole 
matter  knew  a  good  many  examples  of  rolls  being 
bought  for  four  or  five  centuries  older  than  they  really 
were,  and  they  may  have  thought  that  Western  credulity 
which  had  accepted  so  much,  could  accept  a  few  centuries 
more.  However  that  may  be,  the  order  was  given.  A 
manuscript  was  to  be  produced  in  the  same  character  as 
the  inscription  on  the  Moabite  stone.  It  was  to  be  a 
Biblical  manuscript,  but  no  slavish  copy  of  any  book  of 
the  Bible.  Whether  the  conspirators  familiar  with  our 
Greek  names  for  some  of  the  books  of  the  Pentateuch 


218        AKCHiEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

had  a  sly  intention  in  their  selection  no  one  can  say ; 
but  the  fact  is  there,  that  they  selected  the  book  we 
call  Deuteronomy,  and  proceeded  to  make  it  assume  the 
position  of  a  second  edition.  The  labour  of  acquiring 
a  sufficient  precision  in  the  Moabite  alphabet  must 
have  been  great.  Supposing  this  difficulty  surmounted, 
the  work  of  dictating  an  amended  book  of  Deuteronomy, 
in  language  sufficiently  archaic  to  pass  undetected  under 
the  eyes  of  the  most  learned  persons  the  Western  world 
had  at  its  disposal,  might  well  have  made  the  most 
sanguine  Eastern  despair.  But  there  was  courage  as 
well  as  skill  among  the  allies.  The  third  difficulty, 
the  material,  they  must  have  known  to  be,  on  the  face 
of  it,  at  least  as  great  as  either  of  the  other  two.  It 
would  appear  that  they  got  synagogue  rolls  of  un- 
doubted and  considerable  antiquity,  and  with  broad 
margins,  and  they  cut  off  the  margins  to  form  the 
corpus  of  their  last  and  greatest  experiment.  The 
outer  edge  of  the  old  and  worn  roll  was,  of  course, 
ragged;  they  seem  to  have  been  unable  to  grapple 
with  the  difficulty  of  causing  the  cleanness  of  their 
new  edge  to  disappear.  Further,  the  roll  from  which 
they  cut  the  margins  had  lines  run  with  a  pointer 
across  its  width,  to  divide  it  into  proper  spaces  for  the 
columns  of  manuscript,  and  these  ineradicable  lines, 
impressed  into  the  material  of  the  leather,  remained  on 
the  margins  they  cut  off.  They  boiled  the  leather  in 
fat,  put  it  into  the  ashes,  and  maltreated  it  in  every 
imaginable  way  to  make  it  look  old,  but  they  so  far 


ARCHiEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        219 

forgot  themselves  as  to  leave  it  supple.  All  having 
been  duly  completed,  they  prepared  the  historical  and 
geographical  facts  of  its  discovery.  A  Bedawi  had 
found  it  in  a  cave  many  years  ago,  near  Aroer,  on  the 
river  Amon,  on  the  north  border  of  Moab.  It  was 
wrapped  in  dark-coloured  linen,  embalmed  after  the 
manner  of  Egyptian  mummies.  The  fortunate  finder 
kept  it  as  a  talisman  for  a  considerable  time.  At 
length  it  came  into  M.  Shapira's  hands  at  the  modest 
cost  of  a  few  shillings.  Its  talismanic  properties  had 
evidently  proved  to  be  apocryphal. 

The  new  possessor  of  the  manuscript  saw  in  it  some- 
thing more  than  a  discredited  talisman.  It  was  nothing 
less  than  an  early — perhaps  original — manuscript  of 
the  book  of  Deuteronomy,  written  in  the  same  character 
as  that  of  the  Moabite  stone  to  which  the  date  900  B.C. 
had  been  assigned.  The  value  of  such  a  document  was 
beyond  calculation ;  M.  Shapira  gave  up  the  attempt 
and  put  it  at  1,000^000^  For  this  sum  the  British 
Museum  could  have  it,  or  presumably,  any  great  insti- 
tution. It  was  brought  first  to  the  British  Museum,  in 
July  1883. 

M.  Ganneau  saw  an  announcement  in  the  news- 
papers that  this  precious  relic  had  come  to  London, 
but  the  name  of  its  owner  was  not  mentioned.  He 
wrote,  on  August  1,  to  the  French  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction,  stating  that  he  had  reasons  for  holding  the 
document  in  suspicion  until  the  fullest  examination 
should  be  made;  that  it  might  prove  to  be  yet  one 


220        ARCHJEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

more  of  the  frauds  to  which  the  discovery  of  the 
Moabite  stone  had  given  rise  ;  and  that  there  might  be 
some  connection  of  origin  between  it  and  the  pseudo- 
Moabite  pottery  purchased  some  years  before  by  the 
Emperor  of  Germany — so  M.  Ganneau  describes  that 
potentate — which  he  had  shewn  to  be  absolutely  apocry- 
phal. The  result,  he  adds,  fully  confirmed  his  doubts. 
The  remark  must  occur  to  the  reader  that  M.  Ganneau 
had  no  priority  or  monopoly  of  doubt,  as  he  seems  to 
imagine.  What  he  said  to  the  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction  was  just  what  the  great  mass  of  people  who 
knew  anything  about  such  matters  had  said  in  England 
from  the  first.  The  manuscript  required,  of  course, 
careful  examination ;  but  the  only  real  question  was 
where  would  the  first  clear  evidence  be  found  that  the 
forgers  had  outwitted  themselves.  No  doubt  there 
were  people  who  were  ready  to  believe  the  possibility 
of  the  existence  of  such  a  document,  but  they  were  not 
among  those  who  know  what  manuscripts  are.  Captain 
Conder  wrote  a  very  sensible  letter  to  the  'Times,' 
pointing  out  that  our  earliest  Hebrew  manuscript  is 
not  older  than  the  seventh  century  alter  Christ,  and 
that  the  famous  Samaritan  roll  at  Shechem,  which  he 
had  more  than  once  examined,  dating  possibly  from  the 
sixth  century,  is  in  a  very  different  state  from  the 
Shapira  manuscript.  People  had  been  inclined  to 
argue  from  papyrus  to  leather.  He  informed  those 
who  did  not  know  more  about  papyri  than  that  some 
were  supposed  to  be  3,000  and  4,000  years  old,  that  it 


ARCHiEOLOaiCAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        221 

was  only  in  the  dry  and  rainless  Theban  desert  that 
such  examples  were  known,  and  that  their  state  before 
they  were  unrolled  was  something  as  unlike  as  possible 
to  the  complaisant  leather  of  the  original  of  Deutero- 
nomy. Papyrus  and  parchment  both  were  used  by 
the  Assyrians  and  the  Accadians,  and  not  a  fragment 
of  either  was  known  to  survive.  And  yet  here  in 
Moab,  a  district  with  a  rainfall  of  twenty  inches,  a  mass 
of  comparatively  supple  rolls  of  leather  was  found, 
written  in  characters  which  preceded  the  square 
Hebrew,  so  that  the  manuscript  must  be  at  least  2,000 
years  old.  That  was  the  tone  taken  by  those  who 
knew  about  such  things,  and  it  is  absurd  for  M. 
Ganneau  to  write  as  if  he  had  any  priority  or  monopoly 
of  insight  into  the  truth. 

The  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  gave  M.  Gan- 
neau a  mission  to  England  to  examine  and  report  upon 
the  manuscript.  It  had  been  committed  for  that  pur- 
pose by  the  Museum  authorities  to  Dr.  Ginsburg,  who 
had  been  at  work  upon  it  a  fortnight  when  M.  Ganneau 
arrived,  and  had  not  finished  with  it.  Imagine  an 
Englishman  going  under  such  circumstances  to  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationale  or  the  Louvre,  and  expecting 
to  be  allowed  to  examine  the  manuscript.  Nothing 
can  be  more  polite  and  obliging  than  the  authorities  of 
those  institutions,  but  they  would  know  how  to  indicate 
that  the  document  was  closely  engaged  under  official 
examination,  and  that  at  present  it  was  not  to  be  seen. 
If  the  Englishman,  after  such  an  answer,  persisted,  and 


222        ARCHiEOLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

quoted  his  official  mission,  they  would  have  no  difficulty 
in  indicating  their  feeling  that  the  Minister  who  gave 
the  mission,  and  the  person  who  attempted  to  execute 
it,  were  just  a  little  forward. 

No  such  reception  was  accorded  to  M.  Ganneau, 
and  yet  he  writes  of  what  happened  with  additional 
gall  in  his  ink  and  a  special  point  to  his  pen.  Indeed, 
from  the  moment  that  Dr.  Ginsburg  appears  upon  the 
scene,  we  feel  that  we  have  got  at  the  final  cause  of  M. 
Ganneau's  little  book.  There  is  a  bath  well  known  at 
hydropathic  establishments  called  '  the  sharp  needle,' 
where  the  sufferer  is  surrounded  by  coils  of  pipes  full 
of  little  holes,  from  which  issues  a  countless  and  con- 
tinuous shower  of  icy  darts  when  the  torturer  gives  a 
twist  to  the  screw.  The  relations  between  the  appa- 
ratus and  the  bather  are  much  the  same  as  those  be- 
tween this  portion  of  M.  Ganneau's  book  and  Dr. 
Ginsburg.  The  bath,  it  may  be  remarked,  is  much 
enjoyed  by  some  people,  and  it  does  them  a  great  deal 
of  good.  M.  Ganneau  came  to  the  British  Museum, 
and  was  introduced  to  the  room  in  which  were  Dr. 
Ginsburg,  the  manuscript,  and — M.  Shapira.  He  was 
received  with  marked  coolness.  He  explained  that  he 
had  come  to  study  the  document ;  that,  in  order  not  to 
interfere  with  Dr.  Ginsburg's  '  priority '  in  the  matter 
of  text,  he  would  confine  himself  entirely  to  the  material, 
and  that  he  only  asked  for  one  hour's  study.  Dr.  Gins- 
burg allowed  him  to  look  at  two  or  three  of  the  frag- 
ments, and  promised  to  let  him  know  next  day  but  one 


ABCH^OLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        223 

whether  the  request  could  be  granted.  Some  of  the 
fragments  were  displayed  in  a  glass  case,  and  these  he, 
like  the  rest  of  the  world,  could  look  at  as  long  as  he 
pleased,  though  not,  of  course,  under  the  most  favourable 
circumstances.  That  is  the  manner  in  which  most  of 
us  have  to  examine  things  supposed  to  be  of  great  value 
and  perishable. 

When  M.  Ganneau  returned  to  the  Museum,  the 
Principal  Librarian  told  him  that,  to  his  great  regret, 
he  could  not  submit  the  fragments  to  him,  for  M. 
Shapira  absolutely  refused  to  allow  him  to  do  so. 
That  this  was  M.  Shapira's  strict  right  M.  Ganneau 
allows,  but  he  proceeds  :  '  L'on  pourrait  se  demander 
seulement  pourquoi  le  Dr.  Ginsburg  et  I'administration 
du  British  Museum  ont  cru  pouvoir  de  preter  a  une 
pareille  recusation.  II  ne  m'appartient  pas  de  repondre 
a  cette  delicate  question.'  There  is  clearly  more  than 
one  usage  of  the  word  delicate;  but  the  answer  is  a 
very  simple  one — what  else  could  they  do  ?  It  must  be 
remembered,  too,  that  their  visitor  was  an  old  acquaint- 
ance, whose  desire  for  'priorite  was  well  known,  and  it 
was  pretty  certain  that  he  would  interrupt  the  cautious 
and  complete  investigation  by  some  public  announce- 
ment, '  une  note  destinee  a  me  faire  prendre  date  et  h, 
m'assurer  la  priorite  de  la  decouverte  et  de  I'interpreta- 
tion,'  as  he  said  in  his  letter  to  the  '  Times '  in  con- 
nection with  the  Moabite  stone.  In  fact,  this  was 
what  actually  happened.  He  complains  with  various 
insinuations,  that  he  was  not  allowed  by  special  favour 


224        ARCH^OLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

to  examine  the  leather.  But,  after  all,  he  was  allowed 
to  examine  it  by  special  favour  of  Dr.  Ginsburg,  and 
by  the  general  liberality  of  the  authorities  of  the 
Museum,  to  an  extent  quite  sufficient  for  his  purpose. 
The  fragments  in  Dr.  Ginsburg's  hands  and  those  in 
the  glass  case  told  their  story  to  him  quite  clearly,  and 
he  lost  no  time  in  proceeding  '  k  me  faire  prendre  date.' 
He  wrote  to  the  'Times'  on  August  18  a  long  letter, 
which  appeared  on  August  21,  stating  that  the  manu- 
script was  a  forgery,  written  on  leather  cut  off  the 
margin  of  a  synagogue  roll,  as  was  shewn  by  the  fact 
that  there  were  lines  running  across  the  leather,  which 
had  served  to  divide  the  whole  original  scroll  into  con- 
venient columns,  and  that  the  forger  had  written  across 
these  lines  as  if  they  had  not  been  present.  The  scraps 
of  margin  had  been  sewed  together  to  make  a  continuous 
piece.  An  evening  journal  has  slyly  suggested  that  if 
Selim  had  been  present  he  would  have  explained  that 
Moses,  being  a  great  economist,  used  the  margins  of  a 
roll  of  Genesis  for  writing  Deuteronomy.  No  doubt  it 
might  be  maintained  in  sober  earnest  that  if  it  was 
possible  for  leather  of  that  age  to  exist  still,  the  facts 
of  its  having  one  edge  cut  clean  and  of  lines  being  im- 
pressed upon  it  across  the  writing  were  not  inconsistent 
with  conceivable  circumstances.  If  that  was  all  there 
was  to  say  against  the  manuscript,  its  defenders  were 
not  reduced  to  that  utter  despair  to  which  M.  Ganneau 
claims  to  have  reduced  them.  Fortunately,  in  the 
same  number  of  the  '  Times,'  there  appeared  the  letter 


AKCH^OLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE        225 

from  Mr.  Conder  above  described,  which  dealt  a  much 
severer  blow  than  that  of  M.  Ganneau,  and  from  a 
more  scientific  side. 

The  hasty  publication  of  the  fact  observed  by  M. 
Ganneau  coincided  with  the  completion  of  Dr.  Ginsburg's 
labours.  As  though  no  such  person  had  intervened, 
Dr.  Ginsburg  allowed  his  translation  of  the  closing 
portions  of  the  manuscript  to  appear  in  the  ^  Times,' 
and  sent  to  the  authorities  of  the  British  Museum  his 
report  on  the  document,  dated  August  22,  1883,  the 
day  after  M.  Ganneau's  letter  appeared  in  the  '  Times.' 
Dr.  Ginsburg  declared  it  a  forgery  both  on  external 
and  on  internal  evidence.  The  external  evidence  was 
that  already  announced  by  M.  Ganneau,  but  he  was 
able  to  add  the  very  important  fact,  without  which  M. 
Ganneau's  statement  loses  much  of  the  force  it  would 
have  had,  that  rolls  of  just  such  leather,  with  margins 
of  the  right  width,  were  bought  by  the  British  Museum 
from  M.  Shapira  in  1877,  the  year  in  which  he  became 
possessed  of  the  manuscript,  and  that  in  one  of  these 
rolls  a  piece  of  the  margin  had  been  cut  off  and  sewed 
on  again.  Now,  in  reporting  thus,  Dr.  Ginsburg  did 
not  allude  to  M.  Ganneau.  It  would  have  been  a 
simple  matter  to  say  a  few  graceful  words  of  the 
eminent  French  savant  to  whom  he  had  shewn  some 
of  the  fragments ;  had  the  circumstances  of  the  two 
men  been  reversed,  M.  Ganneau,  in  reporting,  would 
have  managed  to  make  the  other  wish  he  had  not  been 
in  such  a  hurry  to  put  in  his  claim  for  priority.     But 

Q 


226       ARCH^OLOGICAL  FRAUDS  IN  PALESTINE 

Dr.  Ginsburg  did  not  even  allude  to  M.  Ganneau,  and 
he  suffers  for  it.  There  is  a  paragraph  on  page  232  of 
M.  Ganneau's  little  book  which,  from  the  concentration 
of  its  venom,  must  probably  take  rank  as  his  chef 
d'oeuvre.  We  will  not  give  him  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
it  on  these  pages. 

The  other  ground,  the  internal  evidence,  was  in 
itself  more  interesting ;  and  here  Dr.  Ginsburg's  three 
weeks'  study  almost  found  its  justification.  The  book 
had  remarkable  variations  from  the  received  Deutero- 
nomy, the  object  of  several  of  them  being  obvious ;  it 
was  dictated  by  some  one  who  learned  his  Hebrew  in 
the  north  of  Europe,  to  two  scribes,  neither  of  whom 
was  perfect  in  the  alphabet  of  the  Moabite  stone ;  and 
the  dictator  either  was  careless  in  his  revision  or  was 
himself  not  well  practised  in  the  alphabet,  for  gross 
blunders  were  allowed  to  remain.  Gross,  by  the  way, 
only  too  aptly  characterises  the  example  given  by  Dr. 
Ginsburg. 

It  has  seemed  necessary  to  speak  of  some  parts  of 
M.  Ganneau's  amusing  little  book  in  a  manner  very 
different  from  that  in  which  it  would  be  natural  and 
pleasant  to  speak  of  anything  done  by  one  who  has  so 
many  claims  on  the  regard  of  the  scientific  world. 
The  necessity  of  speaking  more  strongly  still  of  his 
remarks  in  connection  with  M.  Shapira's  suicide  warns 
us  off  that  painful  subject. 


227 


COLLECTING  ANCESTORS  ^ 

Man  has  been  defined  as  'a  collecting  animal.'  The 
definition  goes  far.  It  notes  the  fact  that  man  has  an 
eye  to  the  past,  a  regard,  respect,  reverence,  for  anti- 
quity and  things  ancient.  It  notes  the  fact  that  man 
has  an  eye  to  the  present,  to  beauty,  comparison,  ex- 
haustive illustration,  acquisition.  It  notes  the  fact  that 
man  has  an  eye  to  the  future,  desires  to  build  up  an 
interest  that  may  grow  as  he  grows,  to  send  down 
something  that  bears  the  impress  of  his  own  handi- 
work. And  it  notes  the  fact  that  each  man  has  his 
individuality,  his  idiosyncrasy,  his  taste,  his  hobby. 

No  doubt  these  characteristics  often  lie  dormant  in 
men,  not  at  times  only  but  throughout  their  lives. 
Still,  they  are  there,  though  dormant.  And  they  are, 
as  a  class,  distinctive  of  the  man  as  compared  with 
other  animals.  The  bower-bird — not  that  a  bird,  ex- 
cept for  scientific  purposes,  is  usually  regarded  as  an 
animal — decking  its  garden  and  walking  about  in  it 
with  its  tail  spread,  comes  nearer  to  man  than  most 
things  do  which  are  not  man.     The  squirrel  storing 

»   Cornhill  Magazine,  March  1895. 

Q  2 


228  COLLECTING  ANCESTORS 

nuts  for  the  winter  is  a  collecting  animal.  But  these 
are  only  examples  of  the  working  of  two  universal  laws, 
from  which  no  living  thing  is  free,  the  instinct  of  pre- 
serving life  and  the  instinct  of  perpetuating  life. 

A  collecting  animal !  What  a  delight  it  is  to  be 
able  to  fulfil  in  one's  own  person  this  definition;  to 
have  the  knowledge,  and  to  have  for  once  the  money ! 
If  careful  search  were  made  by  some  favourable  en- 
quirer, it  might  perhaps  be  found  that  to  be  a  collector, 
to  collect,  calls  into  play  some  of  the  highest  and 
noblest  feelings  of  which  man  is  capable.  It  certainly 
calls  into  play  some  of  the  worst.  We  must  draw,  of 
course,  a  clear  and  broad  line  between  calling  into  play 
an  unworthy  feeling  and  inducing  the  man  to  give  way 
to  it.  Many  a  collector  has  been  tempted  by  the  oppor- 
tunity of  acquiring  a  treasure  from  some  ignorant  per- 
son, at  a  twentieth  part  of  its  value,  to  the  great  loss  of 
the  owner;  and  some  have  overcome  the  temptation. 
Some  haven't.  Many  a  collector  has  been  tempted  to 
delay  the  return  of  a  specimen  or  a  book  or  a  photo- 
graph, in  the  idea — carefully  concealed  from  himself — 
that  the  owner  and  he  will  forget  all  about  it,  or  one  of 
them  will  die,  or  in  some  other  way  it  will  become  a 
part  of  his  own  collection.  The  knowledge  of  most  of 
us  is  adverse  to  the  view  that  collectors  always — or 
shall  we  shall  generally  ? — overcome  this  curious  temp- 
tation. Many  a  collector  has  been  tempted  to  dig  up 
by  the  roots  and  carry  away  the  only  specimen  he  can 
find  of  some  rare  plant.     Let  botanists  and  tourists 


COLLECTING  ANCESTORS  229 

look  into  their  hearts,  and  their  other  receptacles,  and 
blush. 

But  collecting  ancestors  is  a  different  kind  of  thing 
from  collecting  china,  or  coins,  or  ivories,  or  ferns. 
You  cannot  buy  them,  dear  or  cheap ;  you  cannot  steal 
them;  you  cannot  dig  them  up  and  dry  them.  Of 
course,  in  a  sense  you  can  buy  them ;  that  is,  you  can 
buy  a  picture  of  'a  gentleman  in  half-armour/  and, 
having  ascertained  the  period  represented  by  the  dress, 
you  can  paint  a  name  and  a  date  upon  it.  It  is  also, 
in  a  sense,  possible  to  steal  them :  in  the  sense,  that  is 
of  taking  what  is  not  your  own.  But  you  cannot  take 
them  away  from  the  people  to  whom  they  belong ;  for 
one  of  the  charms  of  an  ancestor  is  that  he  can  belong 
to  a  great  many  people,  and  half  a  dozen  more  make  no 
practical  difference.  It  is  no  robbery  of  Lord  Spencer 
to  claim  kinship  with  the  departed  glories  of  burnt 
Cowdray  and  drowned  Montacute.  It  is  less  clear  that 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  you  can  dig  them  up  and  dry 
them.  It  is  only  in  metaphor  that  you  talk  of  un- 
earthing an  ancestor ;  and  a  dry  old  hunks  is  the  mere 
abuse  of  a  deservedly  disappointed  heir. 

Landscape  gardeners  tell  you  there  are  two  ways  of 
making  a  weeping  ash.  One  is  to  graft  buds  of  weepers 
at  the  crown  of  an  ordinary  stem.  The  other  is  to  plant 
a  sapling  upside  down,  branches  in  the  ground,  roots  in 
the  air.  If  you  examine  some  very  large  specimens, 
you  will  see  reason  to  think  that  the  latter  course  has 
been  adopted.     So,  in  producing  a  genealogical  tree, 


230  COLLECTING  ANCESTOES 

you  may  proceed  on  either  of  two  methods.  You  can 
begin  at  the  top,  or  you  can  begin  at  the  bottom.  The 
one  gives  you  a  fan-shaped  tree  hung  from  the  tassel  of 
the  fan ;  the  other  gives  you  the  fan  as  a  woman  holds 
it.     The  woman  is  always  right  in  these  days. 

Beginning  then  at  the  bottom,  that  is,  at  yourself, 
it  is  clear  that  above  your  own  name  come  two  others. 
Above  each  of  those  two  others,  and  so  on.  In  four 
generations,  counting  yourself  as  one,  there  stand  above 
you  eight  names,  and  of  these,  in  ordinary  course,  only 
one  is  your  own  name.  What  are  the  others  ?  Where 
did  the  eight  people  live  ?  Who  were  their  forbears  ? 
Of  course,  if  you  are  a  great  person  you  have  the  answer 
at  once ;  it  is  emblazoned  at  the  Heralds'  College ;  it  is 
recorded  on  the  pages  of  the  history  of  England  or  of 
Scotland ;  you  have  it  constructively  or  actually  in  the 
Peerages,  the  County  Families,  the  Landed  Gentry; 
you  can  draw  it  all  out  when  you  please.  But  there 
are  a  great  many  people,  and  not  such  very  small 
people  either,  who  can  by  no  means  tell  you  very 
straight  off  all  the  eight  names  and  all  about  them ; 
there  are  a  great  many  more  who  are  lucky  if  as  much 
as  one  of  the  eight  is  found  in  those  interesting  volumes; 
there  are  a  vast  multitude  who  have  not  even  that  assist- 
ance towards  collecting  their  ancestors.  If  persons 
belonging  to  any  of  these  three  classes  desire  to  collect, 
in  any  one  of  the  eight  branches  which  does  not  link 
on  to  lines  in  printed  books,  there  is  only  one  way  to 
do  it.     They  must  go  to  the  parish  registers.     After 


COLLECTINa  ANCESTORS  231 

that,  if  they  have  been  fortunate,  they  have  plenty  of 
other  places  to  go  to,  probate  offices,  and  so  on ;  but 
our  present  concern  is  with  the  first  step,  the  parish 
registers. 

Behold,  then,  a  collector  of  ancestors,  who  knows  all 
about  his  wife's  eight  names  and  a  good  deal  about 
some  of  his  own  eight,  going  forth  to  investigate  the 
earlier  origin  of  a  relative  so  near  as  his  mother's 
father.  That  gentleman  was  not  a  young  man,  was 
rather  elderly,  when  the  collector's  mother  was  born, 
and  she  was  born  in  1801.  His  birth  may  have  taken 
place  about  1750.  A  reference  to  a  directory  of  the 
cathedral  city  in  which  he  lived,  dated  1825,  shewed 
that  he  was  sub-chanter  of  the  cathedral  church,  rector 
of  Thursdaythorpe  ^  in  the  W6lds,  vicar  of  St.  Mary 
Priesthill  Junior  in  the  city,  and  curate  of  Appleton, 
four  miles  up  the  river.  The  ^Maior  and  Jurats'  of 
New  Romney  once  applied  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  to  send  them  '  a  nimble  curate  in  full 
orders;'  and  on  January  31,  1664,  they  remonstrated 
with  their  non-resident  vicar  for  having  left  them 
wholly  destitute  since  Christmas  last,  up  to  which  time 
they  had  enjoyed  the  services  of  '  a  nimble  curate  who 
was  usually  in  his  sermon  and  prayer  before  it  about  a 
quarter  of  an  hour.'  The  collector's  grandparent  must 
have  been  a  very  nimble  curate  if  he  did  all  his  duties 
at  Appleton  and  elsewhere. 

»  The  thin  disguises  of  names  of  places  here  and  in  Westmor- 
land are  retained  as  they  originally  appeared. 


232  COLLECTING  ANCESTORS 

The  collector  had  never  had  speech  of  this  beneficed 
gentleman.  How  much  could  have  been  learned  in  ten 
minutes'  conversation  with  him,  if  he  had  consented  to 
be  communicative !  He  was,  as  a  fact,  very  reticent. 
'  We  are  a  fallen  family,'  was  all  he  would  tell  his 
young  daughter,  who  was  inquisitive,  as  young  daughters 
sometimes  are — or  were.  *We  came  from  Scotland, 
long  ago,'  he  used  to  say.  And  once,  talking  of  some 
great  people  near,  he  was  heard  to  say,  '  Countess  !  I 
have  a  cousin  a  countess.'  Before  his  death  he  de- 
stroyed his  letters  and  papers ;  but  in  a  private  drawer 
there  had  once  been  seen  a  miniature  of  a  beautiful 
young  woman,  and  his  daughter  imagined  that  this 
was  the  cousin,  and  that  thereby  hung  a  tale.  The 
collector  once  came  by  accident  on  the  official  record 
of  his  appointment  as  chaplain  to  the  premier  Earl  of 
Scotland ;  but  no  attainable  cousin  seemed  to  lurk  in 
either  of  the  countesses  of  the  said  earl. 

One  thing  was  quite  certain ;  he  himself  came  from 
Charbrook,  in  Westmorland,  and  his  father  was  a 
'  statesman,'  the  owner  and  worker,  that  is,  of  an  estate 
in  land.  In  that  beautiful  valley  of  Charbrook,  leading 
up  from  the  left  bank  of  Tummere  to  the  Kirkliston 
Pass,  his  forbears  had  lived  and  worked  their  own  land. 
Could  they  be  traced  in  the  registers  ?  Were  their  de- 
scendants still  there?  A  letter  to  the  vicar  settled 
both  questions.  They  appeared  on  the  first  page  of 
the  registers,  and  they  and  another  family  were  at 
present  the  most  respected  statesmen  in  the  dale.     The 


COLLECTING  ANCESTORS  233 

first  page  of  the  registers  might  not  mean  very  much 
in  the  way  of  antiquity,  but  the  answer  was  stimu- 
lating. 

To  get  to  Charbrook  village  you  have,  as  every  one 
knows,  to  go  by  Stringness,  if  you  go  by  water,  and  by 
Birkthwaite,  wrongly  called  Turnmere,  if  you  go  by 
rail.  How  the  tourist  swarms  at  Stringness,  and  how 
bright  the  shore  looks,  with  its  dozens  of  pleasure  boats 
gaily  painted  and  red-cushioned  !  And  how  pretty  the 
white-winged  yachts  are,  bending  gracefully  beneath 
the  breeze  till  their  jib  laps  the  water !  And  if  you  are 
there  on  the  occasion  of  a  regatta,  when  the  racing 
yachts  are  for  once  brought  out  from  their  confinement 
in  safe  houses,  you  do  indeed  see  a  beautiful  sight. 
Even  the  swiftly  plying  steam  yachts  are  not  un- 
picturesque,  from  the  little  cock-boat  with  a  tea-kettle 
for  a  boiler,  to  the  great  public  boats,  the  '  Teal,'  and 
the  ^  Swan,'  and  the  '  Tern,'  built  respectively  for  three, 
four,  and  five  hundred  people,  and  on  occasion  proving 
that  they  possess  elastic  properties.  It  is  not  quite 
sure  that  the  steamer,  as  etherealised  by  Mr.  Kuskin  on 
the  neighbouring  Konigsee  into  a  glorified  gondola,  is 
so  very  much  superior,  from  an  aesthetic  point  of  view, 
to  these  Midland  Railway  boats,  with  W.S.Y. — sup- 
posed to  be  short  for  whisky — embroidered  on  the 
jerseys  of  the  men.  And  how  well  the  great  crowds  on 
board  and  on  shore  conduct  themselves,  all  good  temper, 
and  quietness,  and  propriety !  The  contrast  between 
this  and  the  Isle  of  Man  is  in  this  respect  extreme. 


234         COLLECTING  ANCESTORS 

There  is  probably  no  place  in  existence  which  is  so 
trying  to  a  quiet  person  as  Man  in  the  hands  of 
trippers.  A  solitary  archaeologist,  sorely  afflicted  by 
that  visitation,  and  treated  with  special  contifmely  by 
some  of  the  'softer'  sex,  thus  delivered  himself: 

It's  true,  but  rather  spiteful, 

To  say,  in  Mona's  isle, 
That  Man  is  quite  delightful, 

But  man  is  very  vile. 

*  What  though  the  spicy  breezes 

Blow  soft  o'er  Ceylon's  isle, 
And  every  prospect  pleases, 

And  only  man  is  vile.' 

With  fallen  man  the  poet 

Reproached  that  torrid  isle ; 
In  Man,  he  did  not  know  it, 

Much  more  than  that  is  vile. 

Fair  Mona,  far  from  torrid, 

Of  tailless  things  the  nurse, 
Thy  tripping  man  is  horrid. 

Thy  tripping  woman  worse. 

But  pleasant  as  the  lake  tourists  are,  the  collector 
avoided  them  by  resting  at  the  most  quiet  and  restful 
place  on  the  lake,  the  Low-moor  Hotel,  with  its  private 
pier  a  mile  short  of  Waterend,  for  Kanturside.  A 
pretty  walk  of  a  mile,  or  a  mile  and  a  half,  over  the 
shoulder  of  the  hill,  brings  you  from  Low-moor  to 
Charbrook  Dale  and  village. 

At   Charbrook   Church    the    Vicar    disclosed    his 
treasures,  kept  still  in  the  old  oak  chest,  with  three 


COLLECTING  ANCESTORS  235 

keys  and  a  partition  for  each  key.  It  was  clear  at  a 
glance  that  the  '  first  page  of  the  Kegister '  meant  a 
great  deal  in  the  way  of  antiquity,  and  that  extra- 
ordinary care  had  been  taken  to  preserve  the  venerable 
relic.  The  first  date  visible  was  1579.  The  records 
had  been  kept  in  a  paper  book,  and  the  earliest  pages 
had  become  discoloured  and  worn,  almost  to  the  last 
degree.  Some  one  with  knowledge  and  means  had  had 
the  worn  fragments  let  into  paper  sheets,  in  the  skilful 
manner  now  carried  to  so  much  perfection  at  the  Record 
Office,  and  bound  in  a  vellum-covered  volume.  More 
than  that,  the  whole  of  the  faded  writing  had  been  read, 
and  the  registers  from  1579  to  the  time  of  the  modern 
books  had  been  copied  into  a  fine  folio  volume  in  a  clear 
hand.  All  this  good  work  was  due  to  the  leading 
statesman  of  the  place,  whose  ancestors,  from  time  im- 
memorial, had  been  among  the  principal  people  there  ; 
his  name,  whether  the  real  name  qr  not  does  not  matter, 
George  Browne.  The  inlaying  of  the  worn  leaves  and 
the  vellum  binding  had  been  done  at  Eipon — much  to 
the  credit  of  the  Ripon  workman.  The  example  set  by 
the  village  of  Charbrook  is  well  worthy  of  imitation  by 
many  greater  places. 

The  ancestors  to  be  collected  were  Forrests,  and  the 
Vicar's  communication  had  said,  ^  Forrests  and  Birketts 
are  all  the  same,'  whatever  that  might  mean.  Again, 
it  does  not  matter  whether  the  names  are  the  real 
names  or  not.  The  second  entry  in  the  Register,  m 
the  year  1579,  ran  thus  :  '  George  Byrkhead  the  .  .  . 


236  COLLECTING  ANCESTORS 

Byrkhead  was  baptized  the  .  .  /  Then  came  '  Cuth- 
bert   Birkett  was   buryed   the  3d   of  April!.'      Then, 

*  Margrett  Birkhead  the  daughter  of  Christofer  Bii'kett 
baptized  the  ...  of  the  moneth  of  Aprill.'  Then, 
'  Catheryne  hir  sister  being  her  Twynlynge  was  baptized 
the  same  daie ' — a  pretty  word  for  a  twin  sister  or  twin 
brother.  Seven  out  of  the  first  nine  legible  entries 
were  of  these  names.  It  was  clear  that  Birkett, 
Birkhead,  and  Byrkhead,  were  all  one,  and  that  the 
Birketts  take  their  name  from  an  ancestor  who  was 
designated  ^o'  the  Byrk-head,'  his  home  nestling  in, 
or  under,  some  projecting  spur  of  the  hill,  clothed  with 
birch  trees.  Any  supposed  reference  to  the  character 
of  the  ancestor  as  a  hardheaded  man  may  be  rejected. 
No  Forrests  appeared  till  1703,  when  there  was  an 
entry,  '  Edward,  son  of  John  Forrest,'  baptized  January 
23,  1703,  meaning,  of  course,  what  we  should  call  1704, 
the  old  year  ending  with  March.  But  in  1647  there 
was  an  entry  which  suggests  an  interesting  question, 

*  Isabell  Ellerey,  daughter  of  George  of  Orrest.'  Every 
one  knows  Orrest  and  Orrest  Head  at  the  foot  of 
Charbrook  Dale,  not  far  from  Stringness.  Did  the 
name  Forrest  in  those  parts  come  by  elision  of  the 
opening  vowel  from  the  place  designation  '  of  Orrest '  ? 
And  was  this  the  last  surviving  hint  of  it,  mixed  up 
with  a  permanent  surname  taken  from  elsewhere  ? 
The  Kegisters  gave  several  examples  of  place  designa- 
tions on  which  surnames  might  be  founded ;  for 
instance,    ^o'   th'   Beckside.'     Ellerey,    or   Elleray,    is 


COLLECTING  ANCESTORS  237 

itself  a  place  designation,  so  that  the  entry  would 
mean  '  Isabell  of  Elleray  of  Orrest,'  the  family  having 
moved  from  Elleray  to  Orrest,  or  from  Orrest  to  Elleray. 
'  Price  '  from  '  ap  Rhys,'  and  '  Pritchett '  from  '  ap 
Richard,'  are  patronymics  formed  on  the  same 
principle  as  '  Forrest '  from  '  of  Orrest.'  In  a  similar 
manner  Saint  Liberius  has  given  birth  to  Saint  Oliver, 
through  the  form  Santo  Liverio,  and  Saint  Odo  to  San 
Todo,  from  Sant'  Odo. 

This  John  Forrest  had  to  be  traced  upwards  and 
downwards.  Upwards,  there  was  no  sign  of  him ;  he 
was  clearly  an  imported  person — a  foreigner.  Down- 
wards, he  grew.  He  married  again,  his  second  wife 
being  '  Agnes  Fleeming.'  Fleming  is  a  common  name 
thereabouts,  and  the  le  Flemings  have  long  been  great 
people  in  those  parts.  The  old  Hall  of  Kirch- Konigs- 
burg  was  their  residence  for  seven  generations,  on  the 
property  which  came  to  them  in  the  time  of  Henry  III. 
by  marriage  with  the  Urswicks.  It  was  not  till  1409 
that  they  settled  at  Tieal,  when  a  marriage  with  the 
daughter  of  Sir  John  de  Lancaster  brought  to  the  le 
Flemings  their  present  lovely  domain.  The  particle  le 
was  dropped  in  the  next  generation ;  nearly  300  years 
later  the  owner  had  his  son  christened  'Michael  le,'  and 
from  that  time  they  have  been  le  Flemings  again. 

This  second  marriage  of  the  foreigner  John  Forrest 
was  in  one  of  the  years  1707  to  1715,  near  the  end  of 
that  period,  the  margin  with  the  years  being  wwn  away. 
On  May  15,  1743,  his  son  married  Agnes  Birkett,  and 


238  COLLECTING  ANCESTORS 

Eichard,  their  fourth  child,  was  baptized  March  19, 1748. 
This  was  the  pluralist  of  1825,  and  thus  the  two  names 
were  added  which  alone  were  wanted  to  complete  the 
eight  in  that  generation.  The  four  corresponding 
names  in  the  previous  generation  were  there  too,  and, 
if  John  could  be  traced,  the  eight  in  the  generation 
beyond  were  in  the  books.  The  leading  names,  more- 
over, were  there  up  to  the  tenth  generation,  beyond 
which  the  registers  did  not  go.  The  collector  had 
secured  from  eighteen  to  twenty  ancestors,  and  search 
among  wives'  parents  would  give  more.  This  was  a 
great  haul  for  one  afternoon. 

The  other  treasures  of  Charbrook  Church  are  the 
church  itself,  with  a  roof  very  bold  for  its  period,  two 
old  collecting  boxes  of  oak,  with  inscriptions,  and  a 
silver  chalice  with  an  inscription,  shewn  at  Carlisle 
some  years  ago,  and  there  seen  by  the  unwitting  col- 
lector. All  of  these  were  found  to  connect  themselves 
with  the  search  for  ancestors.  The  church  was  rebuilt 
in  1736  by  George  Browne,  son  of  Elizabeth  Birkett, 
who  was  aunt  of  Agnes,  the  pluralist's  mother;  the 
pluralist,  it  was  recorded,  preached  in  the  church  when 
it  was  forty  years  old  and  he  twenty-eight.  The 
collecting  boxes  were  inscribed,  ^  Remember  the  poor. 
W.B.  I.e.  1692,'  those  initials  representing  William 
Birkett  and  John  Cookson.  The  chalice  was  inscribed, 
^  This  is  the  gift  of  Agnes  Burkstt  y^  datighter  of  Gapton 
George  Burkett  given  to  GharrehrooJce  Church  Apr  ill  y' 28 
Ann/}  Bom.  1688.'     The  is  had  been  omitted,  and  was 


COLLECTING  ANCESTOKS  239 

added  by  the  same  liand  above  the  line.  These  four 
material '  finds  '  were  pieces  of  luck  such  as  very  rarely 
come  in  a  collector's  way. 

There  remained  the  most  material  of  the  links  with 
Charbrook,  the  existing  members  of  the  two  main 
families.  One  of  the  families  was  soon  exhausted ; 
BirkettSj  as  statesmen,  there  were  none.  But,  of 
course,  every  one  knows  the  '  Mortal  Man '  of  Char- 
brook,  with  its  old  sign,  a  red-faced  man  fronting  a 
pale-faced  one,  and  the  legend  of  their  dialogue — 

'  0  !  Mortal  Man,  that  liv'st  on  bread, 
How  comes  thy  nose  to  be  so  red  ?  ' 
'  Thou  silly  ass,  that  looks  so  pale, 
It  comes  of  drinking  Birkett's  ale  ! ' 

Forrests  had  become  heirs  of  the  two  '  estates '  formerly 
held  by  Birketts,  and  a  very  pleasant  visit  to  the 
modern  statesman  the  collector  had.  The  two  '  tene- 
ments,' held  from  time  immemorial  of  the  great  Barony 
of  Kendal  (manor  of  Turnmere,  sub-manor  of  Char- 
brook),  on  service  of  a  man  and  horse  for  each,  have 
always  been  known  as  Lowfold  and  Lowhouse  respec- 
tively. Lowfold  came  first  to  the  Forrests,  by  marriage 
with  the  Byrkheads,  Robert  having  been  admitted  to 
possession  in  1743,  in  right  of  Agnes  his  wife,  heiress 
of  her  brother  who  died  sine  prole  in  1739.  It  is  now 
let  out  to  cottagers,  the  two  farms  being  worked  as  one, 
and  most  of  the  windows  on  the  ground  floor  and  upper 
story  have  been  made  up,  one  end  of  the  house  being 
used  for  storage.     Before  these  changes  it  must  have 


240  COLLECTING  ANCESTOKS 

been  very  picturesque,  both  on  the  long  straight  face 
which  looked  on  the  village  street,  with  a  particularly- 
fascinating  and  unusual  upper  oriel,  and  also  on  the 
court  side,  where  the  long  house  with  its  return  gable 
end,  and  the  barn  with  another  return  gable,  form  with 
the  wall  and  gate  a  rectangular  enclosure.  There  is  a 
peep  through  to  a  garden  with  southern-wood ;  and  the 
balustraded  space  under  the  bam  roof,  at  the  head  of  the 
covered  stone  stairs,  with  doors  giving  access  to  various 
lofts,  is  gay  with  trailing  flowers,  like  a  German  lavhe. 
An  oak  cupboard  let  two  feet  into  the  wall  in  one  of 
the  rooms  of  Lowfold,  with  unusually  good  carving  and 
pendants,  has  '  1674  C.B.*  in  the  centre  of  the  canopy, 

c  •  • 

and  at  one  end   in   a   circle       ,  that   is  Christopher 

Birkett  and  Anne,  his  wife,  daughter  of  Edward  Turner, 
of  Kendal,  who  were  married  September  5,  1657,  the 
great-great-great-grandfather  and  mother  of  the  col- 
lector. This,  again,  was  a  very  unusual  piece  of  luck. 
On  a  slatey  stone  is  inscribed  '  R.  Forrest  annos  18 
natus  1820,  Jun.  30,'  that  being  the  handiwork  of  a 
son  of  Lowfold  who  became  a  well-known  clergyman  in 
Australia,  and  returned  to  die  at  Kendal  and  be  buried 
at  Charbrook.  The  '  tenement '  of  Lowhouse  came  to 
the  Forrests  a  generation  later  than  Lowfold,  by 
marriage  with  another  Agnes  Birkett.  The  present 
Lowhouse  is  a  much  more  modern  house  than  Lowfold, 
probably  a  hundred  years  later.  It  has  on  a  gable 
'W.B.  M.B.   1627,'   William   Birkett   and  Mary,  his 


COLLECTING  ANCESTOKS  241 

wife,  father  and  mother  of  Christopher,  of  Lowfold, 
But  by  a  very  unusual  instance  of  spaciousness,  William 
and  his  wife  left  standing  within  the  large  enclosure  of 
their  courtyard  the  old  house  which  they  quitted  when 
they  moved  to  the  new  house  in  1627.  It  was  kept  up 
as  a  second  family  house  for  a  considerable  time,  and 
tradition  says  that  '  Capton  George  Burkett '  lived  here, 
whose  daughter  Agnes  gave  the  chalice  in  1688.  It  is 
the  oldest  house  in  the  district,  and  dates  at  least  from 
Edward  IV.'s  time.  An  etching  of  it  was  published 
early  in  the  present  century  in  the  '  Beauties  of  the 
Lake  Scenery,'  and  it  is  the  most  photographed  house 
in  all  the  dale.  A  walk  round  it  shews  a  larger  place 
than  the  photograph  (see  frontispiece)  indicates. 

A  fine  tall  statesman,  sitting  in  an  ancient  chair  in 
the  home  of  his  ancestors,  talking  of  the  old  people  and 
the  old  times,  is  a  very  pleasant  sight  to  see.  The 
pleasure  is  greatly  enhanced,  to  the  mind  of  the 
visitor  from  a  distant  city,  by  the  sense  that  the  old 
times  and  the  old  people  belong  to  him  too.  There 
were  a  few  excellent  bits  of  old  blue  china,  and  two 
great  circular  Leeds  dishes  with  the  feathered  edge, 
exactly  like  two  great  Warburton  dishes  which  the 
collector  in  his  china  days  rescued  from  Nuremberg, 
but  with  the  projecting  rim  at  the  bottom  which  puts 
a  chasm  between  Leeds  and  rare  Warburton.  In  the 
passage  between  the  entrance  and  the  best  room  there 
was  a  beautiful  oak  cupboard,  let  into  the  wall  as  at 
Lowfold,  and  very  skilfully  carved,  with  the  date  1634, 

R 


242  COLLECTING  ANCESTOKS 

seven  years  after  the  completion  of  the  gable  end.  Up- 
stairs, the  great  bedstead  was  quite  a  dream  of  hand- 
some Jacobean  pillars  and  richly  sculptured  head.  It 
bore  in  the  centre  of  the  head  '  G.B.  1654,'  presumably 
'  Capton  George.'  A  beautiful  chest  on  the  landing 
carried  in  bold  relief  the  legend  *  I.B.  1694/  for  John 
Birkett.  Latest  of  all  the  dated  pieces  was  a  plain 
chair  of  black  oak,  with  arms  of  the  Glastonbury  type 
and  the  initials  *  A.B.' — no  doubt  the  Agnes  Birkett 
who  became  heiress  of  Lowfold  in  1739  and  brought  it 
to  the  Forrests  in  1743.  A  date,  '  1752,'  was  marked 
on  the  back  in  different  character.  A  collector  must  be 
very  grasping  who  asks  for  fortune  greater  than  this. 

These  *  tenements  '  were  two  out  of  the  forty-eight 
customary  tenements  of  the  sub-manor  of  Charbrook. 
Both  of  them  were  '  five  cattel '  tenements,  that  is,  the 
holder  had  the  right  to  turn  five  young  cattle  onto  cer- 
tain stinted  pastures  of  commons.  The  lord's  rent 
was  6s.  8d.  Other  land  was  held  with  Lowfold,  for  in 
1742  the  lord's  rent  was  9s.  2cZ.,  and  free  rent  8d. 
The  great  Barony  of  Kendal  was  granted  to  Ivo  Taille- 
bois,  and  in  the  course  of  time  it  came  to  be  divided 
into  four  fees.  One  of  these,  which  included  Charbrook, 
was  called  the  '  Richmond  fee,'  because  it  was  granted 
to  Margaret,  Countess  of  Richmond,  mother  of  Henry 
VII.  It  had  reverted  to  the  Crown  on  the  death  of 
her  father,  John  Beaufort,  Duke  of  Somerset  and 
Kendal.  This  was  the  sixth  escheat  to  the  Crown 
since  Ivo's  line  had  ended  in  two  heiresses,  from  the 


COLLECTINa  ANCESTOES  243 

younger  of  whom,  Alice,  married  to  William  de  Linde- 
sey,  the  Eichmond  moiety  descended.  The  other 
moiety  was  the  'Marquis'  fee.  Alice's  older  sister, 
Heluise,  married  Peter  de  Brus.  One  of  their 
daughters,  Margaret,  married  Eobert  de  Ross,  whose 
heiress  five  generations  later  married  William  Parr. 
William  Parr's  descendant,  five  generations  later  still, 
was  William  Parr  (brother  of  Queen  Catharine  Parr), 
created  Marquis  of  Northampton.  Hence  the  name  of 
'  Marquis '  fee.  Margaret's  sister  Lucy  married  Mar- 
maduke  de  Thweng,  and  brought  to  him  a  half-moiety 
of  the  Barony  of  Kendal.  Their  heiress  married  a 
Lumley,  and  hence  this  fourth  part  of  the  barony  was 
called  the  '  Lumley '  fee.  The  tenants  held  on  the 
tenure  of  service  at  '  the  western  border  for  anent 
Scotland.'  The  Richmond  and  Marquis  fees  are  famous 
as  having  been  the  subject  of  the  attempt  of  James  I. 
and  Prince  Charles  to  put  an  end  to  tenant-right  and 
take  actual  possession  of  the  tenants'  lands.  If  they 
had  succeeded  we  might  now  have  a  race  of  malcontents 
where  all  is  peace  and  order.  The  king's  plea  was 
that  with  the  advent  of  his  gracious  person  to  England 
the  boundary  was  obliterated  and  there  could  be  no 
border  war.  If  no  border  war,  then  no  border  service. 
If  no  border  service,  the  tenure  was  bad.  Prince 
Charles  filed  a  bill  against  the  tenants  of  the  Richmond 
and  Marquis  fees.  They  subscribed  2,700L  and  gave  it 
to  the  Chancellor,  Francis  Bacon,  and  he  confirmed 
them  in  their  customary  rights.     John  Forrest,  George 

R  2 


244  COLLECTING  ANCESTOKS 

Browne,  and  Stephen  Birkhead,  were  among  the  bonds- 
men. 

Stephen  Birkhead's  bond  for  a  second  payment  is 
now  in  the  chest  at  Lowhouse. 

The  Charbrook  statesmen  were  specially  favoured, 
they  and  their  neighbours  at  '  Amylside '  paying  only 
half  and  two-thirds  the  fines  paid  on  change  of  lord  or 
tenant  by  other  tenants  of  the  Richmond  fee.  In  all 
tenements  of  the  fee,  if  daughters  are  lefb  and  no  son, 
the  eldest  daughter  succeeds  without  subdivision,  and 
this  it  is  that  has  kept  the  tenements  and  the  families 
together.  A  widow,  too,  of  customary  right  holds  her 
deceased  husband's  tenement  during  chaste  widowhood, 
another  means  of  keeping  a  family  together.  In  this 
case,  as  the  border  service  could  not  be  performed  by 
the  tenant  in  person,  the  lord  took  as  a  heriot  the  best 
beast  on  the  holding. 

Charbrook,  like  Amylside,  was  a  forest.  The  Lady 
Margaret  had  to  pay  out  21.  3s.  a  year  to  the  foresters 
of  Charbrook,  and  31.  Is.  6d.  to  the  bowbearer  there. 
When  the  *old  park'  was  disparked  it  was  divided 
among  the  tenants,  with  a  special  arrangement  to  give 
a  piece  that  bore  wood  to  each  tenant  who  had  no  wood 
on  his  holding. 

It  remained  to   call   on  the   great   storehouse   of 

ancient  lore,  Mr.  George  Browne,*  the  king  of  the  dale, 

as  some  ladies  had  described  him,  the  statesman  to 

whom  the  parish  is  indebted  for  the  preservation  and 

'  The  coincidence  of  name  is  accidental. 


COLLECTING  ANCESTOES  245 

the  copy  of  the  registers.  Here  indeed  was  a  feast  of 
good  things — manor  rolls,  marriage  contracts,  volume 
after  volume  of  letters  and  drafts  of  letters  bound  in 
order,  and,  collected  on  one  sheet,  the  autographs  of  all 
the  adult  males  of  five  generations,  from  the  owner,  the 
fourth  George  in  succession,  up  to  Benjamin  Browne, 
whose  marriage  with  Elizabeth  Birkett  made  the  owner 
and  the  collector  fourth  cousins.  As  to  the  house, 
there  never  was  such  an  oak  house.  From  the  entrance 
hall  to  the  top  landing  nothing  could  be  seen  but  oak, 
old  oak  :  oak  clocks,  oak  chairs,  oak  chests,  oak  floors, 
oak  doors,  oak  cupboards,  oak  buffets,  oak  partitions, 
oak  walls,  oak  staircases.  The  staircases  were  particu- 
larly engaging,  two  parallel  flights  on  each  story  up 
to  a  half-way  landing,  and  then  a  single  flight  doubling 
back  between  them  to  the  actual  landing ;  all  standing 
open  and  clear,  so  that  from  the  bottom  you  saw  the 
double  and  single  flights  crossing  and  recrossing  in  the 
air.  The  splendour  of  the  carving  was  beyond  descrip- 
tion, especially  in  the  case  of  the  great  bedstead  and 
the  cradle,  carrying  inscriptions  and  an  early  date.  To 
the  eye  of  the  collector,  and  perhaps  in  fact,  there  was 
no  piece  more  interesting  than  the  great  chair  which 
commemorated  the  marriage  of  Benjamin  Browne  and 
Elizabeth  Birkett,  with  the  appropriate  inscriptions — 
all  in  relief,  of  course,  though  that  may  be  a  contradic- 
tion in  terms — and  on  the  back  two  shields,  one  bearing 
the  double-necked  eagle  displayed,^  for  Browne,  and  the 

'  Not  the  usual  arms. 


246  COLLECTING  ANCESTORS 

other  the  Birkett  arms,  on  a  field  sable  three  garbs 
proper  within  a  bordure  or.  This  house,  again,  is 
photographed  by  every  one.  It  is  called  Townend,  and 
the  statesman's  phloxes  are  as  fine  in  their  way  as  his 
oak.  Here  the  collector  was  shewn  original  letters  and 
deeds  and  admissions  of  his  ancestors,  and  was  informed 
that  the  dashing  cavalry  general  of  the  Southern  States 
in  the  war  between  North  and  South  was  grandson  of  a 
Forrest  who  went  out  to  '  Charles  Town ; '  and  elsewhere 
he  learned  that  a  well-known  Australian  statesman — in 
a  different  sense — was  the  grandson  of  another. 

*  The  Forrests  came  from  Kanturside  to  Charbrook 
about  1700,  and  their  tradition  is  that  they  came 
originally  from  Scotland.'  So  the  collector  was  in- 
formed. As  Kanturside  was  for  a  few  days  the  col- 
lector's metropolis,  it  was  a  natural  thing  to  inspect 
the  registers  there.  The  mere  sight  of  them  is  delight- 
ful. They  only  begin  in  1642,  but  for  the  first 
hundred  years  they  were  kept  on  long  narrow  pieces 
of  parchment,  each  new  piece  sewed  on  to  the  end  of 
the  previous  piece  when  required.  They  are  in  three 
separate  rolls,  each  many  yards  long,  and  are  written 
on  both  sides.  The  lengths  of  the  pieces  vary  greatly. 
In  the  oldest  roll  the  average  length  is  about  a  foot, 
and  the  longest  piece  is  about  22  inches.  In  the 
middle  roll  the  pieces  reach  28  and  30  inches  in  length. 
The  most  recent  roll  consists  of  pieces  about  21  inches 
long.     The  breadth  is  from  4J  to  4f  inches. 

John  Forrest  was  soon  found.     Indeed,  there  were 


COLLECTING  ANCESTORS  247 

two.  One  was  born  in  1684,  too  late  by  a  few  years 
for  the  Charbrook  John.  He  had  a  sister  Agnate,  and 
was  son  of  Edwarde  iforrest  of  the  Nook  End  and  Elen 
his  wife.  The  other  was  the  right  John.  He  was 
born  or  baptized  in  the  closing  days  of  1659,  and  was 
brother  of  the  Edwarde  above.  They  were  sons  of 
Edwarde  ffbrrest  of  the  Nook  End  and  Margrett  his 
wife.  As  their  oldest  son  was  born  in  1651,  Edward 
and  Margrett  would  be  born  about  1630  at  the  latest, 
and  it  was  no  use  looking  further  for  them  in  registers 
which  began  in  1642.  A  search  in  the  chest  at  Low- 
house  gave  another  generation ;  for  an  agreement  dated 
1633  was  found,  respecting  the  woods  in  Ambleside,  to 
which  Edward  Forrest  above  Stock  (i.e.  of  Nook  End) 
and  John  Forrest  below  Stock  were  parties.  The 
Stock  is  a  stream  that  runs  through  Ambleside. 

One  of  the  entries  pointed  to  a  tragedy  of  some 
kind,  for  the  deaths  at  the  time  were  far  too  few  for  a 
period  of  epidemic.  Perhaps  the  tragic  circumstances 
spoiled  the  parson's  grammar:  'May  the  11th  was 
Margrett  wife  of  Edward  Forrest  and  Richard  his  son 
were  buried.'  But,  indeed,  having  once  begun  with  a 
'  was,'  the  entry  would  have  made  Margrett  wife  of  both 
father  and  son,  without  the  '  were.' 

Another  entry  pointed  towards  the  Scottish  tradi- 
tion:  '  Gawen  fforrest  was  baptized  18  January  1671.' 
Besides  this  Gawen,  there  were  in  the  earlier  genera- 
tions Gawen  Birkett  and  Gawen  Reay,  and  Robert 
Birkett  married  Janet  Rea  in  1682.     The  spellings  are 


248  COLLECTING  ANCESTORS 

worth  the  notice  of  those  who  are  interested  either  in 
the  name  Wray — like  the  collector — or  in  the  name 
Keay.  Gawen,  son  of  'Gawen  Wrey/  was  baptized 
November  10,  1678;  his  brother  Thomas,  son  of 
'  Gawen  Reay,'  of  Brathay,  was  baptized  November  23, 
1684.  Here  we  have  Rea,  Reay,  and  Wrey  for  one 
and  the  same  family.  Near  Carlisle  we  find  a  spelling 
which  combines  two  of  these — Wreay.  Again,  Low 
Wray  and  High  Wray  and  Wray*s  Castle  are  well- 
known  places  on  the  banks  of  Tummere ;  and  Wrays- 
holme  Tower  near  Cartmel  was  the  fortified  keep  of  the 
Harringtons,  built  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  for- 
feited at  Bosworth  to  Henry's  stepfather  Stanley. 

Enquiry  shewed  that  the  Nook  End  was  still  a 
known  place,  and  to  it  the  collector  naturally  found  his 
way.  The  little  farmhouse  was  evidently  much  older 
than  the  earliest  of  the  Register  rolls.  It  is  the 
furthest  house  on  Tieal  Head,  approached  by  a  pic- 
turesque road  that  becomes  a  footpath  at  Nook  End, 
leadiQg  to  the  Red  Screes.  The  tenement  is  no  longer 
the  residence  of  a  statesman.  It  has  one  roof  for  a 
large  and  lofty  kitchen,  and  another  for  the  stairs. 
The  rest  is  a  long  rectangle.  The  ground  floor  is  all 
one,  with  a  partition  of  black  panelled  oak  across  it. 
A  panelled  door  in  the  middle  of  the  partition  leads 
from  the  '  house '  to  the  '  parlour,'  just  as  a  door  leads 
from  the  hall  to  the  combination-room  in  the  colleges 
in  Cambridge  of  the  older  type.  ^  Combination-room  * 
is  quite  modern,  and  '  the  common  chamber '  is  the  old 


COLLECTING  ANCESTOES  249 

phrase — probably  because  the  fire  was  there,  at  which 
all  the  actual  members  of  the  society  had  a  right  to 
warm  themselves  in  common.  No  early  college  in 
Oxford  had  this  arrangement  of  rooms,  the  Oxford 
ground-plans  being  less  like  those  of  the  domestic 
houses  of  the  period.  Magnificent  Oxford  was  always 
more  lifty  than  modest  Cambridge.  The  simple 
division  of  the  ground  floor  at  Nook  End  into  '  house  ' 
and  '  parlour ' — or  dining-room  and  withdrawing-room, 
as  they  said  in  later  times  and  larger  houses — is  the 
old  English  plan.  The  upper  story  and  the  stairs 
were  all  of  oak,  as  at  Townend,  but  very  rough  and 
rude.  In  none  of  the  four  bedrooms  could  any  initials 
or  dates  be  discovered.  Only  there  was  in  one  of  them 
the  very  largest  oak  chest  any  one  ever  set  eyes  on. 
The  tradition  is  that  it  took  ten  men  to  get  it  upstairs. 
To  look  at  it  and  at  the  stairs,  one  would  say  it  must 
have  been  built  in  the  room. 

And  there,  at  Nook  End,  looking  down  onto  Tieal 
Water  and  Mossmere,  the  collector  had  to  leave  the 
shades  of  this  line  of  ancestors,  in  all  the  mystery  of 
the  tradition— still  fresh,  still  held  among  their  de- 
scendants— that  they  were  a  fallen  family  and  came 
from  Scotland. 

Later  investigations  shewed  that  Lowfold  came  to 
the  Birkheads  by  marriage  with  the  heiress,  Elizabeth 
Airey,  in  1628.  The  Ayrays  go  up  to  Edward  III., 
when  they  intermarried  with  the  Gilpins,  ancestors  of 
Bernard  Gilpin,  the  Apostle  of  the  North.     Lowhouse, 


250  COLLECTING  ANCESTORS 

the  older  of  tlie  two  Lowhouses/  was  already  the  home 
of  the  Birkheads  in  1476,  when  George,  probably  son-in- 
law  of  Richard  Gilpin,  was  Bailiff  of  Charbrook.  And 
Robert  Forrest  of  '  Emilsyd '  was  found  getting  married 
in  1589. 

The  Lowhouse  chest  further  shewed  that  the  Nook 
End  property,  curiously  enough,  had  once  gone  with 
Lowfold.  Edward  Forrest  had  sold  it  before  1670  to 
Thomas  Brathwaite  of  Ambleside  Hall.  Thomas's  sister, 
Dorothy  Sandys,  succeeded  to  Nook  End,  and  to  her 
daughter  Bridget  Sandys  it  descended.  She  married 
Christopher  Birkett  of  Lowfold  about  1688,  and  Chris- 
topher's son  sold  Nook  End  in  1716;  otherwise  it 
would  have  descended  to  Robert  Forrest  of  Lowfold, 
the  great-grandson  of  Edward,  who  sold  it  to  the 
Brathwaites.  This  property  played  an  important  part 
in  the  Chancery  suit  which  caused  the  enactment  of 
the  Statute  (29  Charles  II.)  of  Frauds  and  Perjuries. 
Thomas  Brathwaite  conveyed  to  his  sister  Dorothy  the 
lands  in  Ambleside  above  Stock,  late  purchased  of 
Edward  Forrest,  and  divers  other  parcels,  with  some 
complicated  cross  arrangements  as  between  her  and 
her  cousin  Brathwaite  Otway,  son  of  Thomas's  niece. 
Lady  Otway  of  Ingmire.  Scholarships  at  St.  John's, 
Cambridge,  were  concerned,  and  many  gifts  to  churches 
and  charities.  The  whole  arrangements  of  Thomas  so 
baffled  the  Court  of  Chancery,  that  the  Statute  above 
named  was  passed,  to  declare  what  contracts  of  this 
'  Shewn  in  the  frontispiece. 


COLLECTINa  ANCESTORS  251 

kind  were  valid,  and  what  were  not.  The  only  pro- 
perty that  came  out  as  quite  correctly  conveyed  was 
the  Nook  End.  Thomas  had  an  eye  to  the  Univer- 
sities. His  collection  of  322  coins  of  the  Roman 
Emperors  was  given  to  Oxford  in  1674. 


252 


PONTRESINA  > 

There  are  some  interesting  questions  about  the  name 
of  Pontresina,  both  in  itself  and  in  its  relation  to  the 
position  of  the  place,  to  which  satisfactory  answers  have 
not  been  given.  And  the  older  parts  of  the  village, 
where  the  external  traces  of  the  past  lie,  present  pro- 
blems of  some  difficulty. 

Has  the  name  anything  to  do  with  a  bridge  ?  Why 
should  the  place  be  named  from  a  bridge,  when  the 
only  bridge  there  '  leads  nowhere '  ?  Why  should  the 
old  part  of  the  village,  and  the  old  church,  have  been 
placed  '  up  there  out  of  the  way  '  ?  What  was  the  old 
'  watch-tower '  meant  to  watch  ?  These  questions  are 
capable  of  consistent  answers,  and  a  good  deal  turns 
upon  the  answers ;  or,  rather,  the  answers  turn  upon  a 
good  many  considerations,  some  at  least  of  which  are 
not  devoid  of  general  interest  to  any  one  who  visits  the 
place.  The  detailed  features  of  the  Upper  Engadine  are 
so  familiar  to  thousands  of  people  now,  that  deductions 
drawn  from  them  will  be  readily  followed  by  many  readers. 
Whether  they  will  be  accepted  is  another  matter. 

Speaking  broadly,  the  views  which  it  is  proposed  to 
*  Natianal  Beview,  M&y  1895. 


PONTEESINA  253 

maintain  are  these.  First,  that  there  was  a  great  lake 
filling  the  plain  between  Samaden  and  the  foot  of  the 
rising  ground  of  Pontresina,  so  that  there  was  no  land- 
way  between  the  two ;  no  means  of  crossing  from  one 
side  to  the  other  of  the  main  Engadine  valley  here, 
except  by  boat.  Second,  that  the  approach  from  the 
Lower  Engadine,  and  from  the  lower  parts  of  the  Upper 
Engadine,  to  the  passage  into  Italy  by  the  Bernina, 
was  by  a  road  which  hugged  the  base  of  the  mountains 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  valley  from  that  on  which 
the  road  from  Ponte  to  Samaden  runs:  This  old  road 
ran  from  Ponte  through  Camogask,  and  so  to  Pontresina 
round  the  shoulder  of  the  Muottas  Muraigl  and  the 
Schafberg.  Third,  that  the  way  to  the  Bernina,  for 
places  between  the  Maloya  and  St.  Moritz,  was  by  a 
road  which  crossed  the  Inn  between  Campfer  and  St. 
Moritz,  and  passed  by  the  Statzer  See  over  the  Muottas 
Celerinas,  crossing  the  Roseg  water  by  a  low  bridge, 
and  thence  over  the  Punt  Ota — the  high  bridge — of 
Pontresina.  Fourth,  that  these  two  roads  met  exactly 
at  the  place  where  the  old  five-sided  tower  of  Pontresina 
now  stands,  with  the  old  church  and  the  earliest  houses 
of  the  old  village,  and  ran  thence,  as  one  road,  to  the 
Bernina.  The  watch-tower  would  thus  command  all 
the  roads  connected  with  the  Bernina,  standing  at  the 
point  of  trifurcation,  and  also  the  main  road  up  and 
down  the  Engadine  on  that  side  of  the  valley.  And  the 
bridge  of  Pontresina  would  be  the  one  key  of  this  latter 
road,  and  also  of  all  passage  between  the  Bernina  and 


254  PONTRESINA 

the  upper  part  of  the  Upper  Engadine.  From  '  watch- 
ing nothing/  the  old  tower  will  then  have  watched 
everything.  From  '  leading  nowhere,'  the  high  bridge 
will  have  been  second  in  importance  to  no  bridge  in  the 
old  Engadine. 

The  key  to  the  argument  is  the  great  lake  between 
Samaden  and  the  rising  ground  of  Pontresina  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  valley.  It  is  impossible  to  examine, 
with  any  sort  of  care,  the  line  of  the  Inn  from  Celerina 
to  Bevers  without  seeing  that  such  a  lake  did  at  one 
time  exist.  The  great  carriage-road  from  Samaden 
towards  Pontresina  is,  of  course,  new.  This  road  is 
clearly  carried  across  a  flat  level,  in  parts  still  little 
better  than  a  swamp,  through  which  the  Inn  glides 
swift-foot ;  it  is  only  on  very  great  occasions  that  its 
demeanour  recalls  the  Iser  rolling  rapidly.  The  path- 
way from  Celerina  to  the  bridge  at  the  foot  of  the 
Schlucht  of  the  Inn  has  still  to  be  carried  on  a  raised 
way.  These  parts  of  the  valley  are  almost  as  level  as  a 
billiard  table,  from  the  foot  of  the  hills  on  one  side  to 
the  foot  of  the  hills  on  the  other.  The  eminence  on 
which  the  old  church  of  St.  Gian  now  stands,  with  its 
two  picturesque  towers,  was  evidently  once  an  island, 
and  completely  surrounded  by  water.  There  are  no 
buildings  on  this  broad  level,  and  no  signs  of  any. 
The  modern  Samaden  stands  sufficiently  above  the  lake 
boundary,  and  the  old  Samaden  stood  considerably 
higher  up  still,  where  the  pretty  little  old  church  and 
cemetery   now   stand.     The   only   difficulty    is   found 


P0NTRE8INA  266 

in  the  lower  parts  of  the  village  of  Celerina.  These 
lower  parts  would  have  been  very  near  or  in  the  water. 
But  here  tradition  comes  to  our  aid.  Ludwig,  with  no 
idea  of  a  lake,  records  a  Yolkssage,  to  the  effect  that 
the  village  of  Celerina  used  to  stand  higher  up,  on  the 
hillside.  Perhaps  the  remarkable  terracing  of  the  hill- 
sides, here  and  above  Samaden,  points  to  the  petite 
culture  of  this  earlier  period.  The  phenomenon  calls  for 
some  such  explanation. 

This  idea  of  two  levels  of  residence,  a  lower  level 
succeeding  a  higher,  is  throughout  illustrated  by  the 
signs  of  lake  boundaries.  Immediately  below  Samaden, 
towards  Bevers,  the  boundaries  of  a  primary  and  larger 
lake,  and  of  a  secondary  and  smaller,  are  very  clear. 
The  great  delta  from  the  Beversthal,  on  the  highest 
point  of  which  stands  the  village  of  Bev-ers,  forced  its 
way  gradually  into  the  primary  lake,  and  in  time 
formed  a  dam  which  narrowed  the  lake  and  drove  the 
water  into  a  contracted  course  on  the  further  side  of  the 
valley.  On  that  further  side  there  were  two  smaller 
deltas,  from  the  Champagna  and  Musella  gorges ;  and 
in  these  there  are  plain  marks  of  erosion,  caused  by  the 
run  of  the  narrowed  water.  At  some  time  the  level  of 
the  water  was  suddenly  and  greatly  lowered,  and  the 
narrowed  lake  at  this  point  became  a  rapid  river. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Bevers  delta,  passing  down 
the  Engadine,  the  lake  opened  out  again,  at  a  rather 
lower  level.  The  effect  of  the  intrusion  of  the  delta 
was  in  fact  almost  exactly  that  of  the  intrusion  of  the 


256  PONTRESmA 

great  delta  of  Silvaplana  into  the  lake  there  ;  the  lake 
below  Bevers  evidently  corresponded  very  closely  in  its 
conditions  to  the  present  lake  of  Campfer.  Below 
Bevers,  as  above,  the  two  levels  of  boundary  are  clear. 
Lower  down  still,  only  one  set  of  boundaries  is  marked, 
a  primary  lake  having  filled  the  whole  breadth  of  the 
valley  to  the  steep  mountain  foot  on  the  left  side,  where 
the  road  now  is,  leaving  perhaps  on  the  right  side  room 
for  a  road. 

A  little  lower  down,  the  great  dam  which  formed 
the  lower  boundary  of  the  great  lake  or  succession  of 
lakes  is  unmistakable.  It  is  the  delta  of  Camogask, 
which  pushes  out  from  the  right  side  of  the  valley  and 
meets  the  smaller  delta  of  Ponte  from  the  Albula. 
This  forms  the  first  effective  dam  since  the  Schlucht 
of  the  Inn  at  the  end  of  the  lake  of  St.  Moritz.  Here, 
for  the  first  time,  the  water  was  narrow  enough,  and 
the  ground  firm  enough,  for  a  bridge ;  hence  the 
emphatic  Ponte,  or  ad  Pontem,  which  is  the  only  name 
of  the  village,  a  village  which  in  early  times  owed  its 
existence  to  the  bridge,  and  was  in  other  respects  of  no 
significance. 

Here,  then,  the  lake  ended  ;  and  here,  accordingly, 
we  must  look  into  the  question  of  the  roadways. 

Almost  immediately  below  Ponte,  the  rock  comes 
straight  down  upon  the  present  course  of  the  river,  not 
leaving  room  for  a  carriage-road  without  blasting.  On 
the  crest  of  this  rock  stands  the  castle  Guardaval,  the 
guardian  of  the  valley  of  the  Upper  Engadine  against 


PONTKESINA  257 

hostile  approach  from  the  Lower  Engadine,  formerly 
part  of  the  county  of  Tyrol.  It  was  on  this  account 
that  the  Bishops  of  Chur,  lords  of  the  Upper  Engadine, 
built  the  fortress  and  named  it  Guardaval.  It  guarded 
the  road  from  the  Lower  Engadine,  and  the  bifurcation 
just  above,  at  Ponte,  where  one  branch  followed  the 
course  of  the  present  road  to  Samaden,  while  the  other, 
now  practically  disused,  crossed  the  Inn,  and  passed 
through  Camogask  to  Pontresina,  and  so  to  the  Bernina. 
Modern  conditions  have  made  Ponte  a  more  impor- 
tant place  than  Camogask.  But  that  is  a  complete  in- 
version of  their  former  positions  ;  indeed,  Ponte  may  be 
said  not  to  have  existed  in  comparison  with  Camogask. 
The  Albula  route,  as  every  one  knows,  comes  down  into 
Ponte,  and  there  joins  the  great  road  up  and  down  the 
Engadine,  not  using  the  bridge  of  Ponte  at  all.  Camo- 
gask lies  quite  away  on  the  other  side  of  the  water  and 
of  the  valley,  practically  having  nothing  to  do  with  the 
Albula,  or  the  road  up  and  down  the  Engadine,  or  any 
other  road  of  any  sort  of  importance.  But  when  the 
Romauntsch  Statutes  of  the  Upper  Engadine  were 
made,  Camogask  was  responsible  for  the  Albula,  and 
Ponte  was  not  mentioned  in  this  or  in  any  other  con- 
nection. Statute  125,  of  the  Civil  Statutes,  orders  that 
villages  which  have  the  roads  of  the  passes  shall  protect 
them ;  these  villages  are,  Chiamuesg  per  Alvra,  Pontra- 
sine  per  Bernina,  8ilvaplana  per  Jullia,  that  is,  Camo- 
gask for  the  Albula,  Pontresina  for  the  Bernina,  Silva- 
plana  for  the  Julier.     Thus  Camogask  was  treated  as 

s 


258  PONTRESINA 

the  village  at  the  foot  of  the  Albula,  with  no  mention 
of  Ponte.  Indeed,  Statute  122  declares  that  the  duty 
of  Camogask  in  respect  of  this  pass  was  set  out  in  an 
instrument  of  arrangement  between  it  and  the  Grand 
Commune.  This  throws  the  centre  of  gravity,  or  of 
importance,  to  the  right  (southern)  side  of  the  Upper 
Engadine  at  this  point. 

Not  only  so.  There  is  interesting  evidence  that  even 
for  the  road  on  the  left  side  of  the  valley,  where  the 
present  great  road  runs  from  Ponte  to  Bevers,  Camogask 
had  responsibility,  while  Ponte  was  not  even  men- 
tioned. The  evidence  is  found  in  Statute  114  of  the 
Civil  Statutes.  My  quotations  are  made  from  the  very 
handsome  manuscript  copy  in  the  possession  of  Madame 
Saratz,  formerly  of  the  Steinbock,  which  Madame 
allowed  me  to  study  at  my  leisure,  day  after  day,  in  her 
pretty  rooms  at  the  upper  end  of  the  village.  Statute 
114  regulates  the  Bridge  on  the  great  road  at  the 
Fontana  Merla,  '  the  throstles'  spring  ; '  or,  as  there  are 
no  throstles,  '  the  spring  in  the  morass,'  as  Kymric 
scholars  unromantically  say.  This  bridge  the  heirs  of 
Antoni  Itaun  were  bound  to  make  and  maintain,  as  well 
as  the  way  over  it,  to  the  satisfaction  of  a  representative 
of  Bevers  and  a  representative  of  Camogask.  Thus, 
though  Camogask  is  now,  so  far  as  main  roads  are  con- 
cerned, a  completely  deserted  place,  and  the  bridge  of 
Ponte,  once  so  important  that  it  stamped  its  name  on 
the  village  that  grew  up  about  it,  *  leads  nowhere,'  as 
they   say  of  Pontresina  bridge,  except  to  Camogask, 


PONTRESINA  259 

Camogask  was  originally  the  place  of  main  importance. 
That  is  an  important  link  in  our  argument,  as  we  shall 
see  later. 

The  great  lake,  or  succession  of  lakes  at  descending 
levels,  which  can  thus  be  argued  out  from  the  appear- 
ance of  the  ground,  receives  an  unexpected  support  from 
Campell's  History  of  Kheetia,  printed  in  German  in  1849 
from  Campell's  Latin  Manuscript  of  1570,  preserved  at 
Chur.  Speaking  of  Madulein  and  Camogask,  which  he 
knew  intimately,  he  remarks  that  according  to  tradition 
there  was  once  a  great  lake,  occupying  the  valley  from 
this  point  to  Celerina,  before  the  Inn  broke  its  way 
through  the  rocks  below  Scanfs. 

Taking  the  lake,  or  series  of  lakes,  as  an  established 
fact,  there  would  be  no  direct  access  by  road  from  the 
Samaden  side  to  the  Pontresina  side,  at  any  point 
between  Camogask  and  St.  Moritz.  That  means  that 
the  road  to  the  Bernina  passed  through  Camogask,  keep- 
ing along  the  lower  parts  of  the  foot  of  the  mountains 
till  it  reached  Pontresina.  This  old  road  can  be  seen 
still,  near  Pontresina  itself,  and  it  leads  straight  to  the 
old  watch-tower  there.  That  the  road  should  keep  as 
high  up  above  the  lower  ground  as  the  mountain  sides 
would  allow  it  to  do,  was  a  necessity  of  the  situation 
which  is  of  general  importance  in  considering  the  pro- 
bable course  of  old  roads.  The  lower  part  of  the  ground 
between  the  rock  and  the  water-courses  and  lakes  must 
have  been  soaking  in  water.  You  find  it  out  at  this 
very  spot,  if  you  are  tempted  to  walk  across  the  pretty 

s  M 


260  I>0NTRESINA 

meadows  of  the  Ada  Stifler,  carpeted  with  flowers  that 
warn  the  skilled  explorer.  The  Romauntsch  ground-plan 
of  the  commune  marks  the  place  Paluds,  very  signifi- 
cantly. 

From  the  tower,  the  continuation  of  the  old  road 
may  still  be  seen,  passing  on  towards  the  Bemina  above 
the  present  road.  And,  also  from  the  tower,  a  third  old 
road,  described  now  in  parts  as  only  a  way  for  cattle, 
passagio  per  bestiame,  goes  down  by  zig-zags  to  the  Punt 
Ota  of  Pontresina,  passing  thence  across  the  Roseg 
water,  and  by  the  Statzer  See  and  St.  Moritz  to  the 
bridge  which  has  probably  from  very  early  times  existed 
over  the  Inn  between  St.  Moritz  and  Campfer.  Thus 
the  tower  of  Pontresina  stood  at  a  trifiircation  of  road, 
each  road  of  the  three  being  a  road  of  chief  importance. 
Three  of  its  five  faces,  those  which  include  the  rectan- 
gular part  of  the  tower,  exactly  front  these  three  roads. 
Its  position  and  function  are  thus  accounted  for.  The 
tower  of  Guardaval  commanded  in  like  manner  a  tri- 
fiircation of  road,  one  leading  to  the  Lower  Engadine, 
and  the  others  taking  diiFerent  sides  of  the  lake.  In 
each  case,  too,  a  bridge  played  an  important  part,  the 
bridge  of  Ponte,  and  the  bridge  of  Pontresina.  Guar^ 
daval  guarded  also  the  Albula,  indirectly. 

The  evident  signs  of  a  large  primary  lake  and 
smaller  secondary  lakes,  none  of  them  now  existing,  in- 
dicate two  great  catastrophes :  two  great  burstings  of 
dams  somewhere.  It  is  probable  that  we  have  the  key 
to  these  catastrophes  in  the  lake  of  St.  Moritz,  and  it  is 


PONTRESINA  261 

possible  that  Pontresina  contributed  something.  On 
the  north  side  of  the  lake  of  St.  Moritz,  comparatively 
high  up  on  the  way  to  the  Kulm  road,  there  is  an  old 
delta,  from  the  little  gorge  above  the  village.  It  is  now 
left  high  and  dry  far  above  the  surface  of  the  lake ;  but 
its  level  top  shews  the  height  at  which  the  water  of  the 
lake  stood  when  the  delta  was  being  formed.  In  those 
days  the  rocky  dam  at  the  head  of  the  Schlucht  was  of 
course  much  higher  than  now.  The  first  bursting  of 
the  great  dam,  when  the  lake  stood  at  the  level  of  the 
old  delta,  would  let  down  into  the  lake  of  Samaden  an 
enormous  volume  of  water,  that  would  carry  all  before  it 
when  its  pressure  was  applied  at  the  dam  of  Camogask. 
The  second  level  of  the  lake  of  St.  Moritz,  at  which  it 
must  have  stood  for  a  long  time,  is  quite  as  clearly 
marked.  A  second  catastrophe,  due  to  a  second  burst- 
ing of  the  dam  at  the  head  of  the  Schlucht,  would  clear 
away  the  lowered  dam  at  Camogask,  and  it  possibly 
gave  to  that  place  its  name  of  Campovasto.  The  lakes 
of  Silvaplana  and  Sils  would  not  appear  to  have  been 
largely  affected  by  the  second  of  these  physical  changes, 
if  the  interesting  delta  of  Isola  may  be  taken  as  an  in- 
dication of  the  old  level.  The  primary  lake,  at  least, 
probably  filled  the  valley  from  the  Maloya  to  St.  Moritz. 
The  great  chalet  town  of  Gravas  Alvas,  which  so  few 
people  visit,  shews  where  the  main  road  used  to  run, 
quite  above  the  present  valley.  It  is  just  possible  that 
the  Statzer  See  is  a  relic  of  the  original  lake  of  St. 
Moritz,  which  must  have  extended  far  in  that  direction. 


262  PONTRESINA 

Even  in  historic  times,  long  since  the  secondary- 
series  of  lakes  ceased  to  exist,  there  have  been  great 
catastrophes  due  to  the  influx  of  water.  Chiampel  could 
never  look  at  the  bridge  of  Siis  without  tears.  For 
there,  on  August  28th,  1566,  his  wife  was  carried  off  the 
bridge  itself  by  a  vehement  flood,  and  washed  away. 
Her  body  was  found  with  a  mass  of  debris,  but  quite 
uninjured,  twelve  leagues  down  the  river,  in  Tyrol. 
How  well  the  day  and  the  month,  August  28th,  tell  those 
who  know  the  Engadine  that  there  had  been  the  wonted 
fall  of  snow,  only  heavier  than  usual,  followed  by  a  blaz- 
ing sun ! 

It  remains  to  shew  that  the  bridge  of  Pontresina  was 
the  only  means  of  crossing  the  water  by  road,  between 
the  Morteratsch  and  the  great  lake  of  Samaden. 

Persons  wishing  to  reach  the  Bemina  from  the  Enga- 
dine, and  not  comingby  wayof  Camogask,  must  in  those 
days  cross  at  some  point  the  stream  which  runs  through 
Pontresina,  and  is  called  the  Bemina,  the  Flatz,  and  other 
local  names.  And  they  must  cross  it  at  some  point 
between  its  embouchure  in  the  lake  of  Samaden,  and 
the  point  where  the  Bernina  Fall  and  the  water  from  the 
Morteratsch  join.  Now,  when  the  ground,  so  familiar 
to  English  people,  is  examined,  it  is  seen  that  the  whole 
of  this  line  of  water-system  was  occupied  by  two  lakes, 
with  the  great  gorge  of  Pontresina  between  them  ;  and 
that  a  bridge  over  the  gorge  was  the  only  means  of  get- 
ting across  by  road. 

In  this  case,  as  in  the  cases  already  dealt  with,  there 


PONTRESINA  263 

are  clear  and  interesting  indications  of  a  primary  and 
secondary  lake.  Below  Pontresina  the  stream  evidently 
found  itself,  on  issuing  from  the  gorge,  forming  part  of 
a  long  and  not  very  broad  lake,  into  which  the  water 
from  the  Roseg  also  flowed.  On  one  side  of  this  lake 
the  ground  is  the  property  of  Celerina  ;  on  the  other,  of 
Pontresina.  This  may  probably  be  taken  as  indicating 
that  at  some  point  of  the  lower  part  of  the  Inn-Schlucht 
there  was  a  light  bridge,  so  that  the  Celerina  people 
could  get  round  the  head  of  the  lake  of  Samaden,  and 
cross  the  Inn  at  the  Schlucht,  to  reach  their  more  dis- 
tant possessions  across  the  water.  This  lower  of  the  two 
Pontresina  lakes  extended  as  far  as  the  natural  dam  of 
rock  still  to  be  seen  below  the  Ada  Stifler,  with  a 
Schlucht  on  a  small  scale  still  traversing  it,  making  a 
curiously  sharp  angle  halfway  through.  Almost  im- 
mediately below  the  outlet  from  this  ancient  dam,  the 
stream  ran  into  the  marshy  side  of  the  lake  of  Samaden, 
as  can  be  seen  clearly  on  inspection.  It  is  an  interest- 
ing confirmation  of  this  theory  that  the  territory  of  the 
commune  of  Pontresina  ends  exactly  here,  where  once 
the  lake  evidently  began ;  so  that  the  old  boundaries  of 
Pontresina  were  the  water-course  or  narrow  lake  down 
to  the  embouchure,  and  then  the  margin  of  the  great 
lake.  They  still  keep  to  those  lines.  The  primary  lake 
between  this  point  and  Pontresina  was  of  much  larger 
dimensions  so  far  as  breadth  and  depth  were  concerned. 
Above  Pontresina  there  was  the  same  arrangement — 
a  secondary  lake,  long  and  rather  narrow ;  a  primary 


264  PONTEESINA 

lake,  much  broader  and  deeper.  The  signs  of  this  at 
the  point  where  the  water  now  enters  the  very  striking 
gorge  of  the  Schlucht  are  of  great  interest.  The  water 
rushes  in  these  days  through  a  chasm  which  was  once 
solid  rock  and  formed  the  dam  of  the  secondary  lake. 
It  must  have  poured  over  this  dam  in  a  fine  fall,  until 
at  length  a  sufficient  amount  of  disintegration  had 
taken  place,  and  the  dam  burst,  reducing  the  lake  to 
the  present  stream.  The  dam  of  the  primary  lake  was 
some  few  yards  further  down  the  gorge.  The  rock 
which  formed  it  stands  up  boldly  still,  and  down  below, 
at  the  level  of  the  water  in  the  gorge,  the  remains  of 
this  earlier  dam  are  still  to  be  seen.  When  the  primary 
lake  was  in  existence,  there  must  have  been  a  magnifi- 
cent fall  of  water,  over  this  great  barrier  of  rock,  into 
the  unapproachable  depths  of  the  Schlucht. 

Passing  up  the  valley,  towards  the  foot  of  the  Mor- 
teratsch,  it  is  quite  clear  that  the  existing  fields  are  the 
bottom  of  a  lake  gradually  shallowing  towards  the  inflow 
of  water.  The  lake  was  no  doubt  narrowed  by  the 
great  delta  from  the  rocks  between  Piz  Chalchagn  and 
Piz  Misaun,  but  a  good  deal  of  this  is  comparatively 
late.  The  Romauntsch  name  of  the  broad  level  of  low- 
lying  ground  here,  and  of  the  wooden  bridge  that  now 
spans  the  stream,  is  Runtumas ;  and  this  word  appears 
to  have  some  connection  with  the  smoke  or  vapour  of 
water.  The  fields  which  lie  higher,  on  a  level  with  the 
present  Bernina  road,  are  all  called  Islas,  Mas  dadains 
la  resgia  (beyond  the  saw  mill),  Islas  sur^  Islas  suott,  and 


PONTKESINA  265 

SO  on,  pointing  to  a  time  when  the  secondary  lake  was 
still,  to  some  extent,  in  existence,  and  the  stretches  of 
higher  ground  were  recognised  as  islands. 

When  these  two  lakes,  the  one  above  and  the  other 
below  Pontresina,  were  full  of  water,  the  bridge,  which 
must  in  very  early  times  have  been  thrown  over  the 
beautiful  gorge  of  Pontresina,  was   clearly   the   only 
means  of  getting  across  between  the  Morteratsch  glacier, 
in  its  then  more  advanced  state,  and  the  great  lake  of 
Samaden.     The  fortress  represented  by  the  old  tower  of 
Pontresina,  standing  exactly  at  the  junction  of  the  road 
crossing  the  bridge  with  the  road  from  Camogask  to 
the  Bernina,  would  thus  completely  command  the  access 
to  the  Bernina  pass,  from  whichever  direction  people 
came ;   and   would  command  with  equal  completeness 
the  passage  up  and  down  the  Engadine,  on  this,  the 
southern  side  of  the  chain  of  lakes  which  ran  from  the 
Maloya  to  Camogask.     Its  importance  was  thus  second 
to  none  in  those  regions,  not  even  to  that  of  Guardaval 
itself.     It  may,  perhaps,  seem  that  too  much  is  made  of 
the  traffic,  in  early  times,  from  the  Maloya  and  the  Val 
Bregaglia  to  the  Bernina.     But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
there  was  an  important  amount  of  it.     Thus,  the  com- 
mune of  Bondo,  in  the  Val  Bregaglia,  had  considerable 
holdings  of  pasturage  on  the  hills  which  overhang  the 
Bernina  road,  some  miles  above  Pontresina.     They  still 
hold  this  pasturage ;  and  the  herdsmen  of  Bondo,  with 
their  sheep  and  cattle,  make  the  long  journey  each 
spring  and  autumn.     Statute  1 24  fixes  on  Bondo  the 


266  PONTRESINA 

maintenance  of  a  part  ot  the  Bemina  road,  Ruotta 
d'Bamina.  '  A°  1588  di  8  Magio  siin  instantia  da  M^ 
(Mastrael)  Lurainz  Yietzell,  da  que  temp  M^  dell'  comoen, 
haun  'Is  Sig"  Vicari  Joan  Salis,  M*  Gudaintz  Flori 
Planta,  et  M^  Martin  Rascher  da  Samedan,  cumando  et 
arbitro  intraunter  la  viP*  da  Pontrasine  da  I'una  et  la 
vil^  da  Buond  da  I'otra  vart,  sec  seque.'  Pontresina  is 
to  maintain  the  Punt  d'Arlas,  still  a  well-known  bridge 
on  the  Bemina  road ;  and  the  men  of  Bondo  are  to 
keep  the  road  as  far  as  their  alps  extend. 

The  tower  of  Pontresina  was  probably  built  before 
Guardaval ;  indeed,  the  evidence  makes  it  practically- 
certain  that  it  was,  and  this  evidence  is  so  interesting  a 
warning  against  scepticism  about  ^ancient  remains,* 
that  it  is  worth  mentioning.  The  masonry  of  the  tower 
is  rude,  as  compared  with  the  masonry  at  Guardaval, 
or  at  Sus  and  Zernetz,  at  each  of  which  places  there  are 
old  towers  of  careful  masonry  incorporated  with  houses 
in  the  village.  It  happens,  and  it  is  a  very  fortunate 
chance,  that  all  of  the  six  towers  referred  to  are  men- 
tioned by  Chiampel,  writing  in  1570.*  One  of  them 
was  the  home  of  his  mother's  family,  at  Siis,  where  he 
lived  for  many  years,  beginning  his  ministry  350  years 
ago.  He  exactly  describes  the  two  towers  still  standing 
in  Siis,  and  he  calls  them,  even  in  his  time,  '  very  old.' 
In  the  same  way  at  Zernetz,  he  describes  the  two 
towers,  again  as  '  very  old.'  The  tower  of  Guardaval 
he  does  not  describe  as  *  very  old  ; '  he  merely  says  it 
was  built  in  1250  by  Bishop  Volkart  of  Chur.     It  was 


PONTKESINA  267 

only  320  years  old  when  he  wrote,  only  290  when  he 
first  knew  it,  and  that  he  did  not  call  '  very  old.'  The 
others  were  much  older  than  1250.  At  Pontresina  he 
says,  there  used  to  be  a  fortress,  of  which  traces  remain. 
This  exactly  suits  the  marks  of  rude  repair  which  have 
been  regarded  as  puzzling  features  of  the  tower  of 
Pontresina ;  and  the  evidence  generally  is,  as  was  re- 
marked above,  a  great  warning  against  incredulity. 
The  towers  were  *  very  old '  350  years  ago,  in  the 
opinion  of  a  man  who  knew  very  well  what  really  old 
towers  were.  They  date  fronilong  before  1250.  As  a 
further  example  of  the  small  amount  of  change  which 
has  taken  place  since  his  time,  it  may  be  mentioned 
that  he  describes,  just  as  it  is,  the  solitary  wirthshaus 
of  las  Agnas,  the  Alders,  where  the  Hochgerichtsver- 
sammlungen  of  the  Upper  Engadine  were.  And  he 
tells  his  readers  that  not  far  from  the  highest  point  of 
the  Bernina  were  three  public-houses,  still  called  the 
Bernina-hou  ses . 

The  name  of  the  old  tower  at  Pontresina  is  said  to 
be  Spaniola.  It  has  therefore  been  credited  with  a 
Spanish  origin.  That  would  make  it  very  modern  for 
a  tower  that  was  probably  an  old  part  of  the  residence 
of  Tobias  de  Ponte  Zarisino,  at  the  time  of  his  expulsion 
from  the  Chancellorship  of  the  County  of  the  Upper 
Engadine,  in  May,  1244.  The  two  very  ancient  towers 
in  the  Episcopal  Court  at  Chur  are  called  Marsol  and 
Spinol,  names  which  Chiampel  referred  to  the  Eoman 
conquest  and  occupation  of  Khastia,  as  meaning  Mars  in 


268  PONTRESINA 

oculis  and  8pi7ia  in  oculis,  respectively  war  and  a  thorn 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Rhaetians.  To  this  derivation  Badeker 
still  stands.  Martiola  and  Spiniola,  or  Spinola,  are 
more  probable ;  and  the  latter  name  may  well  have 
made  its  way  to  Pontresina,  which  was  so  closely 
representative  of  Chur  in  the  Engadine.  A  diminutive 
formed  from  a  spine  or  ridge  of  rock  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountain,  is  not  an  unsuitable  name  for  a  tower  built 
of  large  stones  in  such  a  position. 

As  to  Pontresina  itself,  the  arguments  advanced 
above  fully  entitle  it  to  a  name  derived  from  the  bridge. 
The  bridge  and  its  position  are  so  striking,  that,  apart 
from  questions  of  importance,  we  might  have  accepted 
that  origin  for  the  first  syllable  of  the  name.  It  is, 
however,  a  little  startling  to  find  that  the  meadows 
above  the  street  of  Pontresina  are  called  Pontraschins, 
as  though  here  lurked  the  real  origin  of  the  name 
Pontresina.  Thus,  the  legal  description  of  the  field  in 
which  the  English  Church  stands  is  Pontraschin  ziava 
gio  Vova  della  magna,  '  the  meadow  along  the  water- 
course of  the  scar.'  But  no  one  seems  able  to  explain 
this  word,  Pontraschin,  except  as  being  the  same  as 
Pontresina;  and  not  even  the  most  Kymric  scholar 
derives  Pontresina  from  anything  but  a  bridge.  The 
Latin  documents,  from  1139  onwards,  call  the  place 
Pons  Sarisina,  Pons  Saracenus,  and  so  on ;  and  the 
document  still  exists  by  which  Otho  I.  gave  property 
in  940  to  the  Bishops  of  Chur,  to  recoup  them  for  losses 
inflicted  by  the  Saracens.     The  Pallioppi,   father  and 


PONTEESINA  269 

son,  reject  this  derivation,  and  go  to  the  Kymric  for 
Pons  ercynia,  the  high  bridge,  or  to  the  Latin  for  Po7is 
Sarcince,  the  toll  bridge.  Of  the  latter  it  may  be  said 
that  the  payment  of  toll  was  so  well  understood  from 
very  early  times,  throughout  the  middle  ages,  that  the 
loss  of  the  idea  conveyed  by  sarcince  and  its  replacing 
by  saracenus,  is  practically  out  of  the  question.  From 
the  time  of  the  touching  inscription  at  Zurich  to  the 
little  son  of  the  superintendent  of  the  Eoman  toll  of 
two-and-a-half  per  cent,  on  goods  passing  into  Gaul, 
down  to  only  the  other  day,  tolls  on  bridges  were  never 
an  unknown  or  uncommon  thing.  Another  view  might 
be  taken  by  persons  interested  in  the  early  Etruscans 
who  presumably  peopled  the  Engadine  ;  their  own  name 
for  themselves  was  Rasenna;  and  that  termination  enna 
and  ena  was  characteristic.  Pontresina  might  be 
the  bridge  of  the  Rasenna,  or  it  may  have  been  that 
Pontraschin  was  the  pronunciation  of  Pontem  rhdtinum 
or  rhazinum.  A  study  of  the  early  forms  of  Romauntsch 
words  certainly  seems  to  shew  that  the  final  um  and  am 
were  dropped  in  ordinary  conversation,  and  not  elided 
in  verse  only.  In  documentary  fact,  however,  Pontem 
Saracenum  holds  the  field. 

After  all,  may  not  the  name  have  been  originally 
more  simple  than  any  of  these?  Who  can  say  with 
any  certainty  where  is  the  beginning  of  the  river  Inn  ? 
At  the  Maloya,  which  is  not  in  the  Engadine  but  in 
Bregaglia,  they  shew  a  poor  little  stream  which  they 
call  the  Inn,  Ova  d'Oen.     At  Sils  Maria  they  claim  that 


270  PONTRESINA 

the  Fex-thal  is  the  source  of  the  Inn.  To  the  Latin- 
speaking  Italian  coming  over  the  pass  from  Poschiavo, 
which  place  the  returning  traveller  named  Post  claves, 
as  coming  next  affcer  the  keys  of  the  pass,  the  question 
on  arriving  at  Pontresina  was,  Which  route  did  he  take  ; 
— that  to  Camogask,  or  that  across  the  river?  The 
river  and  its  lakes  were  to  him  at  least  as  important  as 
either  of  the  other  sources  of  the  Inn,  and  he  may  well 
have  called  it  the  village  ad  pontem  trails  cenum.  Pon- 
trasine,  the  old  Romauntsch  spelling,  favours  that ;  and 
as  for  the  modern  name,  tres  is  now  the  Romauntsch 
form  of  trans.  Some  writers  have  maintained  that  the 
first  syllable  of  ^  Engadine '  contains  the  name  of  the 
river  Inn,  but  the  arguments  are  on  the  whole  in  favour 
of  the  last  syllable.  The  Romauntsch  derivation  is  in  cho 
(UOen,  '  at  the  head  of  the  Inn,'  and  they  pronounce  the 
name  '  Endjadine.'  Celerina  probably  takes  its  name 
from  the  Oenus,  and  jbhe  earliest  spellings  of  Samaden, 
in  1139  and  1177,  are  Samadene  and  Samadenus. 
Porta  spells  it  Summadoenus,  but  he  is  late,  and  not 
in  this  respect  of  derivations  trustworthy ;  Chiampel, 
two  hundred  years  before  him,  had  given  Summo  d'Oen 
as  the  derivation j  but  he  again  is  not  a  trustworthy 
guide  in  this  respect.  Looking  at  it  all  round,  there  is 
a  good  deal  to  be  said  in  favour  of  '  the  bridge  across 
the  Inn.' 

'  Murray,'  by  the  way,  robs  the  bridge  of  one  of  its 
traditions.  Speaking  of  Capella,  near  Scanfs,  that  ex- 
cellent book  says,  *  it  was  from  this  chapel  .  .  .  that 


PONTEESINA  271 

the  images  were  cast  into  tlie  river,  and  not  at  Pontresina, 
as  is  often  said.'  The  fact  is  that  the  Eeformation  in 
the  Engadine  turned  in  many  places  upon  getting  rid 
of  the  images,  and  a  bridge  over  a  roaring  torrent  was 
a  good  means  of  getting  rid  of  them.  The  images  of 
Pontresina  were  thus  thrown  over  the  high  bridge  into 
the  torrent.  Porta  gave  the  detail  of  the  story  in  1770 
from  the  old  chronicler.  On  these  quaint  stories  of  the 
Eeformation  in  the  Engadine  we  have  said  a  good  deal 
in  a  previous  paper. 


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